The gospel is indeed revolutionary. Your church plant may indeed breathe new life into your chosen community. But it’s highly likely you aren’t “bringing the gospel” to any given area, especially if there are other churches already there. They may not be as new or as fresh or as cool or as exciting or as whatever as whatever you plan to plant might be, but it’s not usually the case that, in the West at least, any one church planter is the missional pioneer.

We need more churches. To be more specific: we need more gospel-centered churches in more areas of missional need. In general, church planting is the most effective form of evangelism and more churches reach more people.

What we don’t need, however, are more churches planted for wrong reasons. What might some of those reasons be? Here are just five:

1. Don’t plant a church out of a messiah complex.

The gospel is indeed revolutionary. Your church plant may indeed breathe new life into your chosen community. But it’s highly likely you aren’t “bringing the gospel” to any given area, especially if there are other churches already there. They may not be as new or as fresh or as cool or as exciting or as whatever as whatever you plan to plant might be, but it’s not usually the case that, in the West at least, any one church planter is the missional pioneer.

This is something I saw a bit during my time in New England. New churches tended to do pretty well, depending on the area, but there were some planters who reasoned that because New England is the least-churched part of the country that they were somehow introducing the gospel to their neighborhood. And the truth is, they may have been reaching people existing churches weren’t or introducing a different kind of ministry than other churches were exercising, but anybody planting even in New England (or any minimally-churched area) ought to do so mindful of the long-tenured faithful who’ve been holding down the fort for years. They could use the extra help. They cannot use some guy thinking he’s coming in on a white horse to save the day.

You’re no neighborhood’s Jesus.

2. Don’t plant a church because you’re bored.

Church plants do take a certain level of entrepreneurial gifting — understood in the right way — but too many planters tend to think too consumeristically about their planting efforts. The kind of pastorpreneurs who start new churches out of an appetite for challenge, for “building something new,” or for climbing their latest mountain tend to think of their churches as projects more than people, and tend to manage more than minister. To be clear, and at the risk of redundancy, a good church planter does have a degree of entrepreneuralism (the “kingly” aspect, for you tri-perspectivalists out there) and does have to manage a lot. But church plant as entrepreneurial endeavor is a first step toward a quick exit, because entrepreneurs tend to get bored fairly quickly and antsy for the next project. Churches deserve more, and steady, plodding commitment is required to cultivate the kind of sustainability churches thrive in over the long haul.

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