Church Planting Mistakes and Blunders—Part 1

By Robin G. Jordan

In this article series I propose to take a look at a number of common mistakes and blunders that those planting Anglican churches in North America are apt to make. These mistakes and blunders come from the various stages of a church plant and not one particular stage. Some were made at the level of the judicatory (i.e., diocese); others were made at the local level.

A new church usually takes about five years to establish itself, depending upon the community and other factors. This is not a hard and fast rule. Some new churches take longer.

Among the possible indicators that a new church has established itself, that it is going to be around for a while and have an impact upon the community, are the following:

1. It has a working discipleship process through which new believers are formed as disciples and disciples are brought to full development.

2. It has established a network of relationships with members of the community and using this relationship network to reach and engage the unchurched. It is regularly adding new people to this network and expanding the base of the congregation.

3. It has a working leadership pipeline and is multiplying, training, developing, and utilizing new leaders. The leadership circle is expanding. It is not static or contracting. Newcomers are able to move into positions of leadership within a reasonable amount of time.

4. It has a growing “footprint.” It has connected with the community in a number of ways and is increasing these connections at frequent and regular intervals. It is having a discernible impact upon the community. If it were to disappear suddenly, its presence in the community would be missed by a wide segment of the community’s population.

5. It is financially self-sustaining. It no longer needs to rely on subsidies from the judicatory or financial support from other sources. It is able to meet its budget and to have a budget surplus. It enjoys a measure of success in raising funds for special projects from contributors within the congregation and donors outside the congregation. Giving is widely distributed throughout the congregation and not confined to a small number of contributors. A substantial number of the members of the congregation tithes or gives proportionally to their income.

6. It has an expanding pool of volunteers and is not reliant on the same group of volunteers.

7. Depending upon the church model that is adopted is regularly conducting services of public worship on Sundays and other times. The church model and the community will determine the frequency of these gatherings and the day and time of the gatherings. In a cell group church, for example, the cell groups might devote a portion of their weekly meeting to worship and then meet together monthly for large group worship. This gathering might be scheduled on a day and time when most cell group members and a sizable number of ministry target group members can attend. More churches are moving away from a traditional Sunday schedule of worship services to having their gatherings on days and times that the population segment which they are targeting can attend. The New Testament tell us that the disciples gathered on other days beside the first day of the week. While it would become customary to gather on Sundays in the early Church, Sunday gatherings are not sacrosanct. Having meetings on Sundays is not essential to our salvation.

This list of possible indicators is not exhaustive.

Readers may note that I have left two possible indicators off this list. While constructing or purchasing its own building was at one time considered an indicator that a new church had established itself, I do not believe that this was a reliable indicator even in the past. Some new churches had the resources to construct or purchase a building at an early stage in the plant but as we shall see the decision to construct or purchase a building proved a bad one and the building became a liability for the new church. In a number of cases the new church did not recognize how much of a liability until later in the life of the church.

Having a full-time vocational pastor was also at one time considered an indicator that a new church had established itself. This may have been true in the past but it is not necessarily true today. A growing number of churches have bi-vocational pastors. With a bi-vocational pastor a new church can meet the criteria that I have listed above. While being bi-vocational has its challenges, it also has its advantages. Among these advantages is that it puts the pastor in the middle of culture on a regular basis and keeps him from becoming missionally stale. For a list of further advantages of bi-vocational pastors, see “Eight Reasons Why Some Full-time Pastors and Staff Should Go Bivocational.”

Most of the mistakes and blunders that I identify in this article series occurred in the critical first five years of a new church. Some would have a lasting impact upon the church. As well as looking at each mistake and blunder, I will also look at the impact that it could have had as the impact that it did have. I see no point of drawing attention to a mistake or blunder without examining how it can affect a church. The purpose of this article is help sponsoring churches or judicatories, church planters, and church planting teams avoid making similar mistakes and blunders.

Mistake #1. Failing to learn as much as possible about the community or neighborhood before planting new church there.

This is such an avoidable mistake but it is made over and over again. If a new church is going to be a good fit with a community or neighborhood, those planting the church need to become experts on the community or neighborhood. Breakaway groups that have left an existing church are particularly apt to make this mistake. They may not appreciate the importance of becoming experts on a community or neighborhood to the success of a church plant or they may assume erroneously that they already know the community or neighborhood.

Breakaway groups may, like the small Anglican church with which I am presently involved, locate their church in a community or neighborhood because they can rent a meeting place in the community or neighborhood or purchase a vacant church building. They may not explore whether the church that they have started will be a good fit with the community or neighborhood or consider the community or neighborhood in determining the shape that their church will take. They may later on blame the community or neighborhood for the failure of the church to thrive but the fault is really their own. They did not do the necessary preliminary information gathering which would have given them a good idea whether the church that they had started would flourish in the community or neighborhood where they located it.

Breakaway groups are likely to make this mistake because they have no sense of being the church on mission and lack good leadership. In the Episcopal Church mission has been redefined as social justice advocacy and ministry to the poor and needy. Those who lead them to split off from an existing church may not have been the right people to lead them in planting a new church. Without a strong missionary mindset and knowledgeable leaders or leaders willing to learn they are prone to overlook basic steps in church planting. For this reason I believe that church networks with a good deal of church planting experience under their belts should take the initiative, link up with breakaway groups, and guide them through the church planting process. They should not be left to muddle along on their own. A church network should be more than a licensing and placement agency for clergy

Mistake #2. Putting the wrong person in pastoral charge of the new church.

This is another very common mistake. In some cases a trained, experienced church planter who started a new church will be its first pastor. Once he is satisfied that the church has gotten off to a good start, he may move on to plant another new church. In other cases, he may remain and become its long term pastor. Church planters who do not have much experience or a lot of training but who have successfully launched a healthy church will follow the same pattern. Having birthed a healthy church, they may feel confident enough to try their hand at launching another healthy church. They may conclude that is the ministry which God has called them. They may, on the other hand, want to see the church that they have birthed grow to maturity. They may conclude that God is leading them to stay on as the new church’s pastor.

Just as there were pioneers and settlers in the United States and Canada in the early days, there are pioneers and settlers in church planting. Sometime a pioneer will become a settler and put down roots. Other times, a pioneer may try the settling for a while and then go back to pioneering. They will get itchy feet. They want to be a part of something new again. They want to be on the cutting edge of mission. For them pioneering a new church may be the most fruitful season of their ministry. If they settle too long, they stagnate.

Some people, on the other hand, are not cut out to pioneer a new church, much less lead one, but due to a variety of circumstances they may be put in pastoral charge of a new church. Too often judicatories will take a hit or miss approach to clergy deployment. They will appoint a pastor to a new church, not because he is the best person for the job but because he happens to be available at the time. He may not be a good match with the congregation. In some cases he may not be a good match with the community. He may lack the skills and experience to pastor a new church and even worse he may show little or no inclination to acquire them.

For example, the deacon who became the vicar of the Mandeville Mission was appointed to that post because he was a transitional deacon and needed a cure of souls in order to be ordained a priest. Before he was sent to seminary and ordained a deacon, he had served as a lay reader at a church that, while it was located in a growing community, was not experiencing any growth.

In the 1980s an Episcopal church located in a growing community could expect to experience some growth. The church in question suffered from what may be described as the invisible church syndrome. It was at a hard-to-find location. It had no signs at main intersections giving directions to the church. It had no ad in the Yellow Pages. It did not purchase newspaper or Welcome Wagon ads or radio spot ads from the local radio stations or otherwise try to reach newcomers to the community. Its rector did not contribute articles to the local newspapers.

Except for a brief internship at a new mission for a semester while at seminary, the vicar had no prior experience of ministering in a new church. Most of his ideas on worship, ministry, mission, and the like came from the time that he was a lay reader at the aforementioned church and the time that he was deacon at an urban parish in New Orleans. He showed no interest in expanding his skills and knowledge in critical areas such as church growth, conflict management, evangelism, leadership development, missiology, and small group ministry. He had concluded that he had learned all that he needed to know at seminary.

His weaknesses in these areas, however, did not become problematic until the church became a parish and he became its rector. The church grew to the point where it outgrew his ability to lead it. His personal growth did not keep pace with the church’s growth. The result was a serious church split which cost a growing church more than a third of its member household and from which it has never recovered. The church split was not entirely his fault. Rather than accept the recommendations of the consultant that the church had hired at the bishop’s behest, the vestry tried to oust him. The vestry was unsuccessful and resigned. The church split was the fallout from the vestry’s resignation. He would retain his position as the rector of the church but in the process would pass up an opportunity to have grown as a pastor. Five years after the split he would resign, leaving behind him a church that was heavily in debt and no longer able to support itself.

While a judicatory may not be able to foresee the outcome of a placement that far ahead, it can take steps to ensure that the person which it is placing in pastoral charge of a new church is competent to lead it during its first five years, that he has the necessary skills and experience. Where skills are lacking, it can provide him with training and development opportunities. Where experience is lacking, it can provide him with a mentor who has experience in leading a new church during those critical years. This will help to ensure that the person pastoring the new church and the new church itself will both get off to a good start.

A judicatory can check regularly on the progress of a new church. It may be able to help the pastor of the new church solve problems before they get out of hand.

How the small Anglican church with which I am presently involved acquired its first pastor and his successor illustrates the kinds of circumstances that may result in the wrong person taking pastoral charge of a new church. The first pastor of the church was the leader of the breakaway group that formed the church. The group decided to affiliate with the Episcopal Missionary Church that had its headquarters in the neighboring state of Tennessee, The leader of the group would read for holy orders in that jurisdiction and would be ordained a deacon and then a priest. In enlisting new members for the congregation, he would focus on recruiting disaffected Episcopalians like the existing members of the congregation. As far as I have been able to ascertain, he confined his recruiting efforts to this very tiny population segment. He may not have had the skills or experience to evangelize the area’s unchurched population or he may simply have not had any interest in evangelizing that population.

A new church needs a pastor who will encourage it to be outward-looking and who can lead it in evangelism. From what I gather, he was not the right person for that task. Unfortunately he would set the pattern for the new church.

The breakaway group would experience a major split during its second year over leadership. The group’s leader who by this time had been ordained a priest resigned. He accepted the call to a small Anglican church out west.

The new church requested the assistance of the Episcopal Missionary Church in finding a new pastor for the church. The jurisdiction, however, had no one who was able to take pastoral charge of the church.

The church then approached a retired priest about becoming the pastor of the church. He lived in Mayfield, a 30 to 45 minute drive from Benton .The retired priest agreed on the condition that the church change its affiliation to the Anglican Province of Christ the King with which he was affiliated. The priest in question would serve as the church’s pastor for six years. During that time the church would switch jurisdictions again when the Anglican Province of Christ the King and the Anglican Church of America merged. When the ACA split over the Anglican Ordinariate, he wanted to join the Roman Catholic Church, bringing the congregation with him. While some members of the congregation were receptive to the idea; others were not. He subsequently resigned. During the time that he was pastor of the church, the average Sunday attendance was never larger than twenty-five people. At the times I visited the church, I was typically the only visitor.

After he left, the church would switch back to its original jurisdiction. This time it was able to find a priest to take pastoral charge of the church. From what I gather, he may have initiated several attempts at outreach to the community but these attempts were unsuccessful. The congregation had little understanding of what he was hoping to accomplish and little enthusiasm for what it was asked to do. He would move on after six months.

One of the shortcomings of the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions is that they have not grasped the importance of training and developing their clergy and lay readers in church planting, evangelism, and related fields. Some jurisdictions have recognized this deficit and are working to bring their clergy and lay readers up to speed so they have all the latest information in these fields and are able to do a better job of planting churches, leading congregations in evangelism, and so on. Others acknowledge the existence of the deficit but simply do not have resources to do anything about it. One possible solution is for several jurisdictions to pool their resources and make use of free online seminars and workshops. They might invite those who are knowledgeable and experienced in these fields in other denominations to conduct these seminars and workshops. If at all possible they should not leave the training and development of clergy and lay readers in these fields to chance.

Mistake #3. Neglecting to equip the congregation for evangelism.

This is a huge mistake but it also a very common one. It is comparable to sending soldiers into battle without weapons and ammunition, much less training on the loading and firing of weapons. One of the main reasons that the equipping of the congregation for evangelism is neglected is that the pastor himself has not been equipped for evangelism. He cannot pass on to others something about which he has little knowledge and in which he has even less experience. Equipping a congregation for evangelism  is a must in a new church. It is essential to its fulfillment of its principal mission which is to spread the gospel, to make disciples, to baptize them, and to instruct them in what Christ himself commanded. The pastor’s role is not only as an equipper but also as an example, or model. If the new church is to be evangelistic, he must take the lead. There is little point to planting a new church if it is not going to reach out to the spiritually lost and share with them the good news. If a new church does not do that from the very beginning, the church will have a difficult time doing it later on.

When I began preaching about getting to know unchurched people, and telling them about Jesus, as well as inviting people to church, the response in the pews was looks of dismay and nervous fidgeting. It must have touched a sensitive area because two members of the congregation began to boycott my sermons. I did not preach every Sunday and they only missed the Sundays when I preached. I asked them what was troubling them. One refused to talk about it. The other did not give me a straight answer. I was not able to work through this problem and was forced to discontinue preaching.

Christians have a lot of misconceptions about evangelism—who is primarily responsible for evangelizing the spiritually lost and discipling new believers, what these closely related tasks involve, and that sort of thing. Overcoming these misconceptions is the first step in training a Christian to evangelize the spiritually lost and to disciple new believers. Providing basic training in these two inseparable tasks should be a part of the development of the core group or nucleus of the new congregation before its first service of public worship is launched. It also should be ongoing, forming an essential part of the new church’s discipleship process. A primary objective of that process should be form new believers into disciples who are capable of replicating themselves.

Some readers may disagree with this analysis but a major reason that Continuing Anglican churches are declining and ACNA church plants are failing is that they are seen as dispensaries of the sacraments, rather than outposts of the Kingdom on the North American mission field. In the 1980s I would have used the analogy of a full service gas station but such gas stations are a rarity these days. In the 1980s when you drove into a full service gas station, an attendant would fill your car with gasoline, take your payment, return your change, give you a receipt, and send you on your way. He also might clean your window and check the air pressure of your tires. I would have compared the priest to the attendant, the sacraments to the gas pump, and the sacramental grace to the gasoline.

Nowadays gas stations are self-service. You must fill up your own car. There is a useful analogy here too. One of the signs of a mature disciple is that he (or she) is a self-feeder. He is capable feeding himself from God’s Word. He no longer needs to be spoon fed like a baby. In other words, he has learned how to pump gas for himself and does not have to rely on someone to do it for him. It is through his Word that God spiritually nourishes us and renews and transforms us.

Churches that overemphasize the importance of the sacraments and which treat as sacraments rites that are not means of grace, however, are encouraging their congregations to remain immature believers. Immature believers do not see themselves as those who serve but rather as those who are served. They are, as Christians, not going fill their proper role as evangelizers and disciplers. Clergy who primarily see themselves as dispensers of sacramental grace are not going to fill their proper role as equippers and exemplars.

In my next article I will take a look at three more church planting mistakes or blunders.

Image Credit: Christ Our Light Anglican Church,Big Rock IL/Greenhouse Movement