Reasons not to plant a church (especially in 2020/21) and why you might want to do it anyway!

There are always lots of reasons not to plant a church and certainly 2020 (and probably 2021) is a challenging year to do it for the obvious reasons! Given that I'm in the process of planting a church , I thought it might be worth writing down some of my thoughts on those reasons. So here goes.

It's a bad time

It's hard to argue with this one surely. 2020 in the UK has seen us locked in our homes for substantial periods of times. It's been an astonishing year, where church buildings have been locked up by order of the government and services, homegroups, the Lord's Supper and Baptism have all been prevented at points and seriously difficult at other points. In fact, we're just back into that kind of lockdown, where, broadly speaking, online will be the only way forward. This time, the churches are responding more robustly to the government, but there is no doubt that whatever the result we're looking at tough restrictions for some time yet.

However, while we shouldn't be naïve about the problems this will cause, we mustn't stop the mission. Let me suggest two counter-arguments. First, and perhaps most importantly, the lost are still lost and their only hope is someone telling them the good news of Jesus (Romans 10:14-15). In fact, it may be that we should see this as a particularly good time to reach people with the gospel, as we are a nation desperately in need of hope in the face of death. While the mechanics of getting church meetings and so forth going may be tricky, the reality is that, more than ever, we need more faithful local churches.

Second, we have to accept there is never going to be a 'good time' if you decide to look at the problems. Imagine, if the apostles had hunkered down after Pentecost and said something like, "Now isn't the time to start churches, our leader has just been killed and there's far too much opposition." Or imagine if the Christians spread across the Roman Empire by the persecution of Paul after the martyrdom of Stephen had said the same instead of preaching wherever they went (Acts 8:4). When problems come we must face them wisely, but we still need to preach the gospel and plant churches.

It's not 'strategic'

I'm planting in the town of Rochdale in the North West of England. Rochdale probably was a pretty strategic place during the industrial revolution. It had massive growth in the 1800s based on the cotton industry. Now it would not be considered in that light, it is a town facing serious deprivation and, in terms of industry and employment, has suffered greatly over the last 100 years.

Many people who are looking at planting like to follow what they perceive as Paul's model - which is going to major centres and plant churches there, because they will influence the whole area. I think that's a pretty reasonable model, so long as the churches in those major centres do influence the whole area. Especially in the UK, we usually have one or two strong churches in our major metropolitan areas (for us it would be the city of Manchester). I don't doubt we need more churches in those areas, but we mustn't keep our eyes down, so that we don't look beyond. What we need is people coming from those areas to reach the surrounding regions.

I love the story of Ephaphras and Colosse. Listen to the description of Colosse in the New Bible Commentary: 

"Colosse was a small, relatively unimportant city in Roman times...although it had a thriving wool industry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC."

Sound familiar? So how come a church started there? Well Paul planted a church in Ephesus and it seems that from there (in a pretty short space of time) a man called Epaphras, who was converted, went back to his home town of Colosse, evangelised it and started churches down his valley (Colossians 1:7; 4:12-13).

Broadly, in the UK, I think we need a few less people aspiring to be the apostle Paul, and a few more who are happy to be an Epaphras, spreading the gospel and church plants through less significant areas. That seems to me to be the apostle's strategy. So, when people suggest a church plant isn't 'strategic' I think they may have got a little lost on their strategy!

I think it's also possible that just now is quite an important time to be expanding the mission of the church through all the country. The pandemic has shown us a couple of things quite clearly. The first is that the church is, broadly speaking, not really on people's radar in the UK, e.g. the government seems to consider churches and their services as not hugely significant or 'essential' things in the national life! The second is that 21st century people have no hope in the face of death. Now must be a time to step forward and not backwards in mission in the UK.

I don't have enough resources

Resources, particularly in terms of finance, are always in short supply it seems - especially planting in a more deprived area, especially in a tanking economy!!! It's not just finances though. At the time of writing it's not possible even to meet together, but even when it is, where will you meet? If you haven't got your own building (like most plants), renting isn't going to be straightforward necessarily and if you need to do it online how much equipment will you need?

Certainly it can be overwhelming. But it seems to me we need to answer two questions. The first is: What do you actually need? Now this will generally take some quite serious thought. There may be all kinds of thinking around your situation, but not just that, you'll need to think around your ecclesiology and how you plan to fulfill the Great Commission in your area. There are hard calls here too. On the one hand there is the desire to get started and have a witness in an area. On the other, we can worry about starting in a way that will quickly fail. However, if we wait until we have everything we want, we will probably never start! In this light I think we want wisdom from God (James 1:5 is encouraging here!).

The second question is probably the easier one to answer, but the more important one to hold onto. It's: Is God able to provide what we need to do what he wants? Now there are some obvious qualifications - particularly it's about us doing what God wants! I love what Paul writes in Ephesians 3:20. God can provide what we need and so much more and in the context (e.g. Ephesians 3:10, 21) Paul is thinking about how God works through the church. We must hold onto the fact that, if God wants us to plant a church, we will lack nothing we need (and God can provide so much more).

Both of those questions should make us prayerful!

I don't have the people

This can be frightening. I want to start a church with about 35-40 people (I mean if you were offering 100 that would be nice!). In truth, in lots of cases, if we are ever to get started, then we might start with very small core teams.

Now in a sense this is a special case of the last reason (people can be viewed as a resource - in a nice way!). So it is worth asking the same questions, as we asked in the last section. I think it's also worth remembering some of the examples of the Bible. Think of Epaphras who we mentioned before. Now he might have taken a huge planting team from Ephesus - but it doesn't seem like it from Colossians. Even Paul, although he often took some sort of team, or partner with him, he didn't usually take a whole load of people to plant in a new area.

Again, we need to be prayerful and keep trusting Ephesians 3:20.

Now don't misunderstand me. There are times not to plant and we need wisdom. I might find in a couple of years time that I've tried to plant and it's completely bombed - certainly I see the risks! But it would be sad if we always found reasons not to plant. And it would be sad if the pandemic stifled church planting and outreach at just the time when the nation needs to hear the good news about Jesus.