Proclaimer Blog
So, you’re a church planter…?
I have great admiration for those who undertake the work of church planting. It requires a certain set of gifts and skills, plus the ability to forage and scavenge which many of us in ministry simply don’t have. But I sometimes worry about the nomenclature. It’s there in 1 Corinthians 3, of course, although (arguably) that is a slightly different thing – Paul’s planting is not in its entirety what we would call church planting – his apostolic mission is even more pioneering.
I guess I worry that those who plant churches might be tempted to reduce their work down to “quick in, quick out”, like a commando raid. For the record – please hear this carefully – most church planters I know don’t take this view. All of the best are generally in it for the longer term. But I come across young guys starting out who are excited just about the planting and nothing else. That is more worrying.
I’ve been meeting up with a church planter regularly and we wondered whether the description “start-up pastor” is a better one. It describes the planting and the pastoring component. Some of these gifted guys will only be with the church a few years before moving on and starting over, but they’re still pastors and they should be thinking as pastors, not just those who kick start a movement.
There’s an obvious danger to missing this boat. Churches will be started but not pastored from the outset. That’s a disaster. As I say, all the best church planters I know do this. Some of them do it really, really well. But I believe we’ve got to stand against the commando type church planter who doesn’t want to be a pastor in any way. Perhaps changing the nomenclature is unlikely or even ill-advised. But when we talk about church planting to the young guys beginning in ministry, we’ve got to be clear what we mean.