This hub does not talk about how to do church planting but some possible traps to avoid. I want to give some ideas that will hopefully help prevent a pastor from being hurt by planting a new church and that will help the new church to succeed.

We will try to keep things positive but there are some truths here that may be hard to swallow.

One of the calls I received when I was looking for a church at graduation time was to get involved in planting a church. The District Superintendent wanted me to plant a church. At first I was excited and then reality started hitting me.

We would be alone in a new area. We would be alone in the beginning unless others from the District dropped in for a visit. Money would also have to come from the generosity of the district people since the District Leader was not going to provide any. The NM district was one of the poorest. I would have to work a secular job in addition to pastoring the church. We would not have any friends or lay people to help.

I turned it down but later wished that I had not done this for each of the reasons I decided not to start the church. We were alone, there was little money, there was no district support and we generally had no one to help.

A friend once told me that it is easier to give birth than to resurrect the dead. If I had anything to offer I would say that a young pastor or one just out of school should plant a church. Go where God leads and start the church. Make new converts; do not recruit those already in the church system or what is referred to as transferred growth. This does not grow the church but just moves problem people from one place to another.

One of the things that District Leaders do in order to plant a new church is to ask the closest churches if they have people who would be willing to go and help plant the church. And, of course, pastors have people they are willing to recommend to go to the new church plant.

Let’s think about this for a moment:

Brother (when they start out calling you brother, you know something is up) David, this is District Superintendent Green. The district committee has decided to do a church plant on the south side of town. What I was wondering is do you have a couple of couples who might be willing to help with this?

Sure, I have several in mind. Now I don't say this outloud but in my mind are Brother Smith and Jones who are causing me a lot of problems. Let’s see if I can’t push them off on someone else.

The District Superintendent calls several more of the local churches who each have their own Brother Smith and Jones they want to get rid of.

So they agree and the church plant is started. It dies shortly after it is started. Why? Because it did not start with good laypeople. It started off with trouble making laypeople who brought their same program to the new church. With the tension between the pastor and these laymen there just was not enough caring to go out and get new people. This church plant was over before it started.

When church planting, keep in mind that with our society today, it may be a few years before you even see your first convert.  Keep in mind that centuries before people grew up being taught what church lingo meant.  Today this is not true.  They are not fimailiar with terms like sin, salvation and saved.

And it may be some time before they are able to financially support the church.

Having a good training program will allow the pastor to grow an effective church. Training is very important but it is often overlooked. People are put into positions they have no clue as to how to perform or accomplish the task of the position.

Growing a new church takes time and energy. A lot of each.