If you are reading this newsletter in a place where you can kneel and pray, please do. At best read this and fold your hands and pray for our dear friends pioneering ministries here in Seattle and beyond.
When I first became interested in church planting, denominations invested millions of dollars to bring a pastor into a situation with several acres of property, some money toward a building, full benefits and a full salary paid by the denomination. Some of these planters were such experts at getting sites started that they came, got a church going to about 200 people and left town in two years to plant somewhere else in the country. A grand majority of these church plants made it. Oh, to live in 1963 again!
50 years later, here’s the story: Being a church planter is arduous and very risky business. In most urban places in America, your chances of success after 5-7 years are probably well under 50%. Funding is minimal. The time to develop a congregation of substantial size and commitment to giving time and money is prolonged. Staff support is expensive and hard to find. The great German theologian and Christian martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said, “When Jesus Christ calls a [person], he bids them to come a die.” Boy oh boy, does this sort of costly discipleship describe church planters, or what?
So….why do it. Because, throughout the history of Christianity the extension of the faith by new and different types of churches that reach new populations and contextualize the faith to new generations has been its salvation! The Dark Ages were a stagnant time of one-type-fits-all church, fraught with a lot of religiosity and too little Jesus. Rich DeVos, the owner of the Orlando Magic, and a dear brother in Christ said, “you cannot maintain. you either build or die.”
So, as church planters we live with the casualties of church planting and all of its rigorous demands because Jesus bids us come and die, and frankly, some of us do die along the way in this line of work. Would we have not taken on Hitler in WWII if we refused casualties or failure? I could use a zillion examples like this. Fact is, some don’t make it.
There are several options. One is to stop planting churches. It’s too painful and risky. Let’s just die. A second option is to plant fewer churches and offer more support to planters out there, which most planters consider parent church command and control. OPTION THREE IS THE ONE I LIKE: Plant churches like crazy. Pray for the planters. Support them in any way we can beyond institutional support and control. Build friendships. Have our planters over for dinner. Have Summer and I take a powder for a week while a planter from our area preaches. And, realize that now and again a church plant won’t make it. That’s not a failure. It’s a way point on a journey for us as a planting church and for the church planters who don’t succeed. All of us become smarter and more capable at what we do. Planters can stay here or go elsewhere and try again. Back in the 60’s planters of denominational church plants that didn’t survive just went to the next place. At least, in many cases they did.
Let’s stay in this place and pray and hope and help as much as we can. And, next time you are tempted to name Oprah or a Rapper or Russell Wilson or Felix Hernandez a hero, open up some room in your heart to hold church planters in the same high esteem.
Randy Rowland