4 Thoughts On Why Some Church Plants Don't Make It
By the grace of God, New City Church will turn two years old next month. In the past 3-4 years since I began the journey of launching New City Church, I’ve
Now to be clear, everything is under God’s control. You could be the best leader, speaker, and disciple maker in the world, but if God doesn’t move, nothing is going to happen. When I look at how New City came to be, all I can do is marvel at the many things God did that none of us can take any credit for.
With that said, I have noticed a few reasons why some church plants don’t make it off the ground, and in this
1) Fundraising was not given all the effort it needed
I’m not sure if this is the number one reason why most church plants fail, but it might be. The math is simple; if you don’t have enough money the church won’t survive very long.
But notice I didn’t say fundraising strategy or skill was the issue, it’s the effort. In my experience, most church planters that don’t raise enough money didn’t give fundraising the effort that was required (or maybe not until it was too late).
Sending letters to everyone you know won’t cut it. Calling a few people won’t cut it. You’ve got to talk to as many people as possible face to face, and call or setup an online meeting with everyone that you can’t. The problem is that asking for money is scary and intimidating, and so we want to make it as easy as possible. So we write a bunch of letters or never ask anyone again that says “no” the first time.
When it comes to church planting, people give to someone they trust or have a relationship with, not the possibility of a new church. Which means church planters need to meet with and share what they are doing, why they are doing it, why investing in what they are doing is worth it, and how potential givers generosity matters.
It’s hard to do that in a letter. Often that’s hard to do in one conversation. Effort in fundraising, not strategy in fundraising, is often the biggest issue.
2) There wasn’t enough thought given to systems and structures
A common refrain I hear from some potential church planters is “I just want to preach the Gospel and love people.” And when I hear that, I get worried.
First of all, you don’t have to plant a church to do that. So if that’s all you want to do, I wouldn’t plant a church.
Of course preaching the Gospel and loving people is a top priority, but the best way to do that is to create systems and structures for that to happen. Systems and structures aren’t the enemy, they are our friend.
Planting a church takes a lot more than preaching a sermon and meeting people for coffee. For example, how are you going to connect and follow up with first time guests so that they might come back again? How are you going to facilitate small groups and get people connected into them? How are you going to handle money? How are you going to recruit and train people to serve? Churches need systems and structures for all of these things plus many, many more.
The good news is that the lead church planter doesn’t have to be good at these things, but they do have to care about them and find people that can help? Otherwise, you’ll never grow larger than a house church. Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a house church, you just can’t get frustrated if it stays that way.
3) Not enough responsibility was given away
In order for a new church to survive, many people need to take ownership of and care about the well-being of the church. How do you make that happen? By giving people responsibilities and places to impact.
The trick is that in the beginning, church planters can do many of the things necessary to get a new church off the ground. But it isn’t about only getting help when you need it, it’s about getting others involved for their own growth as followers of Jesus and for the good of the church.
If people feel unneeded, why should we expect them to stick around? Especially in a church plant setting when they keep hearing the church planter talk about how needed it is to plant more churches. I have found that most people want to be challenged and called to something greater than themselves. And I have seen that some church plants that did not make it because the church planter was too afraid of scaring people off rather than giving them a role to play.
4) The church planter tried to plant alone
When you feel God leading you to do something it can be really hard to be patient on his timing. When I look at most of the church plants I have seen not make it, many of them planted apart from a denomination or church planting network. There was no assessment process or wise counsel speaking into the situation. There wasn’t enough feedback into the life of the potential church planter to see if the timing was right or if they had the requisite skills or training.
Often times this happens because we want to do something and we don’t want anyone telling us "no." We want to change the world and go at it alone and anyone who disagrees with what we are doing is automatically a “doubter” or a “hater.”
And yet Jesus didn’t even let his disciples go on short-term trips alone, they were always
Church planting is too hard and frustrating to do it without the help, wisdom, counsel, and support from others who have done it and can help walk you through it.
If you try to plant a church on your own, no one can tell you “no.” But often a “no” or “not yet” is exactly what we need to hear.
Bonus: Practical Tips For Church Planters
If you are involved in church planting or want to plant a church, check out PracticalPlanting.com and the Practical Church Planting podcast. It's a free resource designed to give you tips, advice, and encouragement to help you plant and grow healthy churches.