Church Planter Profile

If you’re taking this course, it is safe to assume that you do not have a “mother” church that has a new church development program complete with a whole staff of people to guide and support you.  You are very much on your own, and you are either a “one-man show”, or you belong to a small group that does not have a large number of prospective pastors lined up waiting for training and resources.  For these reasons, we need to assume that you were called by God to plant your church.  After all, your denomination needs as many church planters as it can get.  They may be lucky to have you.  Nevertheless, there are certain guidelines which you need to explore so that you can be aware of skills and gifts you need to develop in order to be successful in your church plant.  That is the subject of this section of our course, The Church Planter Profile.

In trying to decide whether or not you are suited to the ministry of church planting, you need to know that there are essential motivations, behaviors, and spiritual gifts which you need in order to succeed.  Let’s take a look:

Essential Motivations

            Humility – a willingness to serve rather than be served.

            Gratitude – a willingness to be satisfied even with small gains.

Essential Behaviors

            Entrepreneurial activity – being able to start things successfully.

            Ability to gather resources – such as people and money.

            Networking – ability to contact and meet many people.

            Flexibility – Being able to adapt

            Endurance – Never give up. If something doesn’t work, stop, take inventory, and try another approach.

Essential Spiritual Giftedness

Spiritual Gift of Leadership – Romans 12:8

                        “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us:  Prophecy in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation, the giver in generosity; the leader in diligence; the compassionate in cheerfulness.”

The Leadership Continuum

Missional                                                                    Pastoral

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The Leadership Continuum is represented by the above arrow.  It represents the kind of leadership needed for planting and pastoring a church.  Studies have shown that both missional and pastoral aspects must be present in the character of the church planter and the pastor, but they differ in proportion for each.

One of the biggest mistakes made by novice church planters is the failure to understand and follow the leadership continuum.  If you are to succeed in cell group multiplication, you must understand this concept very well:  at the planting stage of a church, the church planter must be primarily missional.  At the church planting stage, you must delegate pastoral duties to trained lay ministers so that you will be available to “work” the mission field and gather the sheep that will comprise your flock.  If, in your networking (sheep gathering), you allow yourself to become bogged down with pastoring, you will never grow your church.  In the early stages of “sheep gathering” you will primarily attract the following types of people:  mavericks, malcontents, rebels, pioneers, idealists, zealots, and people with questionable backgrounds.  Beware of having these people take up your mission time by turning to you for their pastoral care.  You should have a ready referral for these people in order to prevent this from happening, and you must plan to train peer support leaders asap. 

In order to help you understand the difference between being missional and being pastoral, let’s look at 5 categories and relate them to our Leadership Continuum.

Category                               Missional                            Pastoral

Behaviors/Actions             Evangelizing                        Discipling

                                                Going                                    Staying (building)

                                                Finding                                 Keeping

                                                Starting                                 Finishing

                                                Outreach                              In-reach

Geography                           Lots of Places                    One Place

People                                   Lost Sheep                         Found Sheep

God’s Word                          Gospel                                Whole Counsel of God

Ministering Style                Challenge                            Care for people

                                                    People

One of the things you need to understand is that planting/pastoring a church requires the leader to be both missional and pastoral.  If you find that you are lacking in certain skills in either style of ministry, there are things you can do to gain the skills you need.  There are books, workshops, and courses you can take.  Of course, you may feel that you will never be gifted in being either missional or pastoral.  Don’t forget that no one is fully missional or pastoral.  The important thing is to identify where you are strong and where you are lacking.  Then, try to acquire what is missing.  You can also team up with a person who has the opposite strengths you do.  That person will complement your style of ministry and will be of invaluable service to you and the church.  As you go about networking and establishing your small faith groups, remember that you are looking to identify potential lay leaders who will add their strengths to yours, as well as those who would be good ministry partners and part of your launch team.

Assignment 5:

            Spend some serious time analyzing your own character and skills in terms of the leadership continuum.  Come up with an action plan of how you are going to fill in the gaps in order to become the person you need to be in order to be a successful church planter.  Write down your thoughts in your journal for later submission.