This article will discuss aspects of leading a new church plant, and examine appropriate responses to the different issues involved. There are all sorts of issues to examine and things to weigh when beginning a new church plant. Issues such as the church plant team, church leadership, and outreach are a few. This paper will look at these and more, and give a model of how a church plant should run in a city of twenty thousand.
Surveying the Community
The foremost thing a leader must do when God calls him to lead a church plant, is to survey the area. This of course, comes after hearing from God on where he is called. The leader cannot just go into ministry when and where he feels like going, he needs to go where God has called him to.
The leader must make sure that he and his church-plant team know the demographics of the area well. He should thus take time to research the demographics, and then assemble and present this information way to his team. They must all have a firm grasp on understanding the area, so that they can know how to minister properly to the community. Next, the team should think up practical ways in which they can minister to these people, taking the demographics into account, and how this will influence the practical outreach methods and behaviours. They should do a SWOTS analysis, of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Things that will either help or hinder the church's intimacy with God, holiness, and the salvation of the community.
The Team
The next part of leading a church plant is to assemble the right team to go into the place that needs to be ministered to. The team should be composed of a roughly equal amount of men and women as much as is possible. A good size is around six to twelve people (or more when is possible). It is easier to take twice as many women as part of the team, because women outnumber men two to one across Christianity. The problem with this is that it will hinder men from joining the church, and slant the church influence and programs towards women's ministries.
The church plant should include at least a few youth on its team, or else it will be very difficult to win the youth of the community to Christ. This is a common problem in churches. The church gears itself towards adults for the Sunday service, and sets up a youth group for the youth. The youth group ends up being mostly goofing-off, and a lesson that the youth do not really change their lives to. This is not an acceptable way of treating youth ministry. The youth must be given full-on discipleship. If you give youth a purpose, and focus on making tangible changes in their life, many of them will be interested. Youth will also be interested in the standard fun-and-games youth groups, however it does not matter then, since their is no point in having a youth group if it is not geared towards discipleship.
The Church Purposes
The church must have a set of overriding purposes that it will seek to accomplish above all else. There must be multiple purposes, if there is only one the church will be perform inadequate and partial ministry. So what are the overall purposes the church should set itself to accomplish? First of all, it must be remembered that we do not get to decide. A church is not a business, it is ruled by God and we are accountable to Him. The Bible gives us three main purposes a church should have. First are the two greatest commandments which Christ gave us to follow above all else. The first purpose must be to bring the people in the church to love God with all their heart. The second should be that the church would grow to the place where they love each other with an immense love. After this is the great commission. To make as many disciples of Christ as possible. Not church growth, but discipleship.
To go further on each of these purposes, we will start by looking at the first one: to love God with all our heart. This is going to involve discipling the members to the place where they yield every aspect of their life to Christ, and eventually, are glad when getting to undergo suffering and hardships for Him. This will be a complete paradigm shift for most people, however it is completely necessary for enjoying the most intimate encounters with the Holy Spirit, and greatest power for ministry, besides having a greater capacity to enjoy heaven. The more of ourselves we give to God, the more of Himself He will give to us. Once the congregation starts encountering the Holy Spirit, they will automatically have a lot more love for God than otherwise possible. Besides these two main points, there are many other things a pastor can do to facilitate getting the congregation into the fullness of love for God, but that is beyond the scope of this paper.
The next purpose is that the members must love one another with a total love. This is a large problem in many churches. They become dens of gossip and cliquing. The pastor must make sure not to be content with stopping only these behaviours. What is most important is that not just their external behaviour, but their internal heart attitudes are transformed to Christlike love for one another. Once this happens, they will automatically stop the external effects such as gossiping and cliques anyways, because they will not be able to bear doing it once they have a genuine heart of love. The pastor is going to have to keep hitting on the issue of having a heart of love for one another, not excessively, but a lot more than most other topics.
The third main purpose for the church needs to be to make disciples. This is going to require getting out into the community and bringing in those that are willing to accept Christ, and also the life of discipleship which follows. Discipleship is going to have to be the primary emphasis of the church. A lot of pastors, and authors make church growth their primary objective, but this not what the great commission says. Church policy is often to try to get unbelievers to come to church. This is totally unbiblical though. The church is the assembly of the believers. A church should never be trying to get unbelievers to come to it. Rather it needs to be the one coming to the unbelievers. Sunday services are not going to be attractive to unbelievers. The messages are not going to be relevant to them, and neither will the worship be. The evangelistic programmes must always go to the unbelievers where they are. The only times it is good to invite unbelievers to church is when hosting special services specifically geared for them, and apart from the regular Sunday service.
People cannot join the church unless they are willing to make a commitment to God that goes beyond "believing" in Jesus. They must be willing to commit to the two greatest commandments and also pledge to obey everything Christ says (with His help). There is no room for half-hearted Christians in the church. Numbers are not important, discipleship is.
Apostolic Oversight
Aligning one's church under those with an apostolic anointing will help release large amounts of blessing and spiritual power to the church. The key is choosing the right people to come under. Not everyone who calls themself an apostle really is one. This is one of the main issues the church needs to pray over. Once the church finds some who have a genuine apostolic calling, and that it is practical to ally with, the church is on the right track in this area.
Theocratic Rule
Theocratic rule is the single most important aspect of church governance. For most of church history, after the early church died out, the idea of governing the church based on the voice of God existed in name only. Even after the reformation, true theocratic governance was still largely ignored because not many people knew how to really hear from God, or how to discern between God's voice and the human thought process. The denial of the office of a prophet throughout church history is another tragedy which has made true theocratic rule impossible to establish. The early church based all their decisions off of the voice of God, but this was soon lost as the church became corrupt. Since the Pentecostal and Charismatic awakenings however, people are now realizing that they can receive the gift of prophecy, and thus be guided by God for their life. Some have also been given the office as prophets, and can thus bring regular direction from God to their church. Because of this, direct theocratic rule is now possible for the church. It is not only possible, but is really the only way the church can be truly effective. Churches who are operating on marketplace principles, or secular leadership strategies are doing dead works, and not operating under God's blessing. For there to be God's blessing, things need to be done God's way.
Church Leadership
The pastor will facilitate the major decisions in the church, after discussing things with his team of elders, seeing what God says or what He leaves for them to decide themselves. The basic structure of this is to have a team of elders, with one person as pastor who carries the lead authority, and can take the final say when necessary. Elders are almost always referred to in the plural in the New Testament. There must be a pastor over them though. James the brother of Jesus, was the pastor of the church in Jerusalem, he was not simply an equal part in a team of elders. When Paul wrote to Crete he wrote specifically to Titus, rather than the elders there. These examples help show that plural eldership with a head elder is the biblical mandate.
The Church Meeting Place
While the church has only a small amount of members, they will meet at the pastor's house. Depending on the rate at which the church grows, they may continue to stay there, or they may consider finding a larger location to gather in. If the church begins to grow at a steady pace, things will soon become too crowded at the pastor's house, and they will have to find a new meeting place. There are several options for this. One is to rent a community centre. It will be secular for most days, but on Sundays it will be used for the church. Some towns and cities will agree to this, but some will not. Another option is to build a brand new building. This raises the question of whether or not the benefits of this are really going to outweigh the price of the building. If the church is only going to be used for Sunday services, then building a whole new structure for this cause is a complete waste of money. The money could be much better spent overseas, or for evangelizing the community. The only way a new building can be justified, is if it is being used for other activities than the Sunday service. This should be happening already though. Discipleship groups and a youth group should be in place by the time a church has enough members to consider buying itself a new building.
Stewardship of Finances
One thing the church is going to have to decide on is exactly how to spend the funds it takes in. There are several factors that are going to influence this decision. One of these is the number of members who attend. If there are only fifteen members coming, the church is in no place to embark on ambitious building projects or buy large amounts of sound equipment. If however, the church has fifty or so members, and is growing at a steady rate, it is going to be a lot more useful to buy a new building, and things like new sound equipment. Not only will it be useful, it will also be more practical.
Another issue on what to fund is missions. Missionaries can usually spend funds more efficiently than local churches. The problem is, until a church reaches a certain size, they are not going to be able to support both missionary work, and also a building project. They are going to have to cut back on one or the other. Church buildings can usually be made much smaller, without compromising its activities. How much a church donates to missions is going to depend not only on the size of the congregation, but also on their salaries, and how much they are willing to give. Not everyone that has a high salary is a good giver though. Statistically, the richer someone is, the less percentage of their income they give. The givers that give the most percentage of their income are those who make the least. As a result of this, it is impossible to plan out church finances until the amount of tithes that usually come in is known.
Children's Ministry
An additional aspect of the church programming is its integration of a discipleship method for kids. Either one of the church members should be a dedicated Sunday School teacher, or else members can rotate shifts of who will lead it each week. The kids program has to be seen as more than just a babysitting opportunity, freeing up the parents for church. Their is also the problem of having the focus on just giving a Bible story each week, without actually dealing with the issues kids face everyday, and showing them how to respond in a Christlike manner. The teachers will have to be informed of this.
Relationship with Other Churches
One of the things the pastor is going to have to deal with is his relationship with the other churches in the area. There are usually going to be Catholic, Alliance, and United Churches in an city of twenty thousand, besides whatever other churches are there. Part of the pastor's duty is to work together with what churches he can, in order to unify the body of Christ in the region, and provide a better witness to unbelievers. First off, the pastor is going to have to decide which churches it is possible to ally with, and which churches are too far gone from God's truth to even be considered saved. First of all, the Catholic church is an interesting question. It is made up of some genuine believers, but on the other hand there is so much unbiblical falsehood added to their system as to make the possibility of an alliance with them questionable. Things such as trusting in works of the law for salvation can cause one to fall from grace, and then there are the issues of Mary worship and the abandonment of the priesthood of all believers. Unity with the Catholic church is going to have to be in the church's attitude towards the people, not towards the system and organizational structure. The pastor should try to get to know the priest and fellowship with him, however he cannot think to embark on evangelistic programmes alongside the Catholic church; there will be too many issues.
Unity with the Alliance church will be easy. There should be no major problems there, and unity with them should be sought out. This can be accomplished by having a time where the pastors in the city go out for coffee together, or enjoy some kind of fellowship such as this. Once a month is a good amount of time for this.
The United church is not a good one to unite with. They stray so far in what they believe (and thus practice) that it is questionable whether they can be considered a Christian church. Many of their pastors are not even truly saved. There are some good United churches, but these are the vast minority. The pastor should not make attempts to have any alliance with the United church, unless it is one of the godly minority.
Sacraments
One of the questions a minister must answer is those things that have to with the sacraments. This is assuming the two sacraments being baptism and communion. Some people see baptism as being an issue of little importance, or a ritual of the law. This thinking is going to have to be corrected. Baptism is always linked together with repentance and salvation in the New Testament, and has to do a great amount with the regeneration of the believer. Thus the pastor should host enough times of baptism each year. Baptism should be done in a public lake or river when possible, rather than in a church since this will declare the believers status to the community, and also save money from being wasted on buying a baptismal tank. Four times a year is a good amount. The church should purchase an add space in the paper to announce the list of those baptized, since public declaration is a very important part of baptism.
Communion should be far more regular than it usually is in churches. A good amount of times is once a week, or every other week. There should be a time of preparation beforehand as part of the sacrament, where believers will make sure their heart attitude towards God and others is right, and they are not living in sin. Regarding communion, Jesus said "do this often in remembrance of me," and "often" is certainly not every two months as is commonly practiced. By practicing a more frequent communion, the believers will have to continually check their hearts to make sure they are repentant.
Outreach
There are two main types of outreach which the church may undertake. The first of these is an outreach method which has as its goal the evangelism of local community, and the salvation of the nearby populace. There are several different strategies which may be implemented to assist in the evangelization of the nearby communities. One of these is door-to-door evangelism. This method can be very effective, however most churches shy away from it because of its association with the Jehovah's Witness movement. Another method of evangelism is for the church to host a community event, and to give a gospel message as part of it. The method in which most North American Churches evangelize however, is to invite unsaved members of the community to their church. This is not usually an effective way of reaching the lost, unless they are invited to a service specifically geared for them.
The other goal of an outreach can be to provide some kind of basic service the community needs. The church could help out with a soup kitchen for instance, or some other kind of charity organization. They could either assist an organization that already exists, or else try to start up something of their own. The best way to do things is to merge the two purposes of evangelism and charity-work when possible. When people see that they are genuinely cared for, they are much more likely to respond positively to the gospel message. Thus door-to-door evangelism, inviting the community to special church events designed for unbelievers, and evangelizing while helping out at a charity are all useful means of evangelizing a community.
Conclusion
This article has examined several critical aspects of church leadership. It has looked the correct church purposes, issues regarding outreach, church governance, finances, and other aspects that are necessary to examine when leading a church. By putting these things into practice correctly, a pastor will be able to lead a godly church that follows God's will for it, rather than man's. There may be issues with gaining numbers, however Jesus did not worry when people deserted Him. All in all, implementing this plan will guide a church into being the best it can be in relationship with God, and service of Him.