Church Planters come in all shapes and sizes, ages, personality & temperaments which we can see today! There are though certain characteristics which are common to Church planters.
Todd Hunter who leads the Vineyard Churches in the States did some research into why some of their plants were successful and some failed. He found that the Characteristics associated with successful Church planters are these
The unsuccessful planters had these characteristics
Obviously some of those are for the main leader but others apply to team as well. Loads of people have done research on what makes a good Church planter and there are all sorts of assessment tools around to check your suitability. I think it boils down to
Call - Is God in it?
Character -keep going without falling?
Chemistry –-are you a people person
Competency - what skills do you have and what do you need to learn?
Some of those you just have and other will grow as you are trained and coached in your plant or Church situations.
Top of the list is
A Clear call is vital.
When it is tough you have got to know, that you know you are doing the right thing. Jan and I went through quite a process settling on St Ives as opposed to Edinburgh, Birmingham or Coventry, but we can say with a settled determination that we were called to plant and now lead a Church in St Ives.
50 % of failed Church Planters unsure of their call Todd Hunter Your call to lead a plant or move to be on a Church planting team may be...
Dramatic like Paul Acts 26:16-18 "Then I asked,Who are you, Lord "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, the Lord replied. Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me
Reluctant Jeremiah 1:4-10 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." "Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child." But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, I am only a child. You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD. Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.
Simple response Isa 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
However the call comes there are certain qualities to it. Burden Mal 1:1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. Or Hab 1:1. It is almost like there is no alternative.
Desire Jeremiah 20:9
Fruit John 15:6 - You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.
Vision - With the call comes the vision.
This will be personal and corporate. I found doing a personal mission statement one of the most helpful things in sorting out whether I was called to be a Church planter. It made me look at who I am and what I want to achieve in life and clarified my vision. The back of your notes contain a Mission Statement workshop, please do it and come up with one for next month!
When it came to moving to St Ives, we then began to get the vision for the plant. As we started looking into planting in St Ives, we realised it was a market town surrounded by 75 village, so we began to get a vision for a large central Church with satellite cells in every town and village within 15 mins drive. That vision was confirmed by prophetic word after prophetic word.
Faith Then God breathes faith for the venture. Part of that is what Todd Hunter calls an optimistic outlook, but deeper than that is that sense of faith and trust in God that He will equip you to be part of what He has called you to do.
I'm not quite sure where to put this next characteristic Intrinsic motivation Not sure whether it is a result of the call, part of one's character mix, or part of having the right chemistry for being a Church planter. Church planting is about being a pioneer, an initiator. Starting something that is not there. That needs intrinsic motivation. You need to be a self starter and not someone that needs a kick up the rear to get going!
Is a major area of the Characteristics of Church planters. Most of these are a given for any Christian leadership, but some are especially necessary in planting
Spiritual life You need to know at the start that you are not up to it! We need God! When I did the course 6 years ago I remember Tony Thompson's challenge ringing in my eyes "Would your prayer life sustain a Church?"
Church growth should never become so mechanical and scientific that it removes God from the equation. He is the Great Commissioner (Matt 28:18-20), the Gift Giver (1 Cor 12:4-6), the Giver of the Holy Spirit (Lk 24:49).
Without the power of the Holy Spirit, church planting becomes a science like opening up a McDonald's store. Church planting needs spiritual people who will pray and seek God for His empowering and His divine strategy.
25% of U.S. pastors spend less than 10 minutes in prayer per day. The average is only about 15 minutes. This would reflect the average in most western countries. That is sad. When you look at Cell leaders stats, Joel Comiskey found that those who prayed for an hour a day multiplied their cells 7 times faster than those who prayed less that 10 mins!
The East fares a bit better. However, if Jesus saw the importance of prayer in His ministry, how much more should we. We need to realize that they are planting them on the front lines of spiritual warfare. All the more reason to be on the front line of prayer. The enemy is never thrilled at losing ground and will do whatever he can to stop the progress. Prayer invigorates, creates faith and builds a positive attitude within the church planter that makes them unstoppable.
The other spiritual disciplines of Scripture reading, study and memorisation, fasting, solitude and so on are vital too. I really recommend John Ortberg's "The Life you've always wanted" or Dallas Willard's "The Spirit of the Disciplines" if you want it meaty!
Spousal support Steve Nicholson writes this... "If married, is the marriage solid and does the spouse support and agree to be involved in the church plant in some way? Without this cooperation, the whole effort comes under a cloud. For something as large and dramatic an undertaking as planting a church, the husband and wife need to be on the same page, in agreement that this is God calling for them, as well as in agreement regarding the timing of things. To be undertaking something like this and not be in sync with each other is asking for trouble from the very beginning. Better to wait to start the church plant until things are on more solid footing than to push on ahead and pay the consequences in the marriage and in the church"
Finances Church planting does not require you to be a financial genius, but it does require that one knows how to handle money wisely, is out of debt, and has a realistic understanding of the financial needs of a church plant in the beginning years. Debt or irresponsibility with money are prime Plant killers, owing to the pressures and conflicts they bring. Given the financial pressures typically accompanying the first few years of a church plant, a significant amount of debt makes planting very difficult.
Mixed in with that caution is the fact that planting a Church will require faith for the finances. We launched with £1400 less coming in a month than we would need. I had to battle in prayer and faith and God spoke to me when I was delivering leaflets outside the door of funnily enough our first converts. He gave me that sense it would come. The next Sunday there was a cheque for £5000 in the offering. We have been more than fine since. Although we have just taken on a second full timer and facing the bigger faith challenge of increasing the giving by £1600 per month. God always keep us on our toes!
Godly character Obviously none of us are perfect yet, but planters do need to be mature and full of integrity.
Some questions you could ask yourself are
1. Do you maintain a life of sexual purity? no flirting, no porn, lust issues, no affairs...
2. Do you have no unresolved conflicts from my past that have not been dealt with appropriately.?
3. Do you have any "skeletons in the close", which, if revealed, would cause embarrassment to the cause of Christ and my family?
4. Would your ministry associates would say that I have a good reputation in the community?
5. Are you teachable in my relationships with colleagues and others?
6. Do you have a gentle spirit when I am under pressure or under personal attack from others.
7. When provoked am I able to find resources to keep my anger under control?
Resilience
The last area of character is resilience. This is that sense of "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" Are you some when that can keep going, when things are hard?
Flexibility and adaptability Are you the kind of person that can changes and adapt as the situation requires. There is a sense of needing to be a bit of a jack of all trades in the early days of the plant.
Specialisation is for insects quote.
Gathering ability People are going to go about the gathering process in different ways. Some people are good at one-on-one conversations; their gifts and attractiveness naturally come out in personal interactions. Others more naturally gather people with their upfront skills: interacting with large groups, communicating, teaching, and casting vision. However it is expressed, though, the ability to gather people is one of the first and most fundamental of abilities that must be present in the church planter. And if someone doesn't have a track record of being able to attract and gather people before planting a church it is unlikely they will suddenly be good at it once they've started, either.
Gathering people also means being able to attract and empower others who are themselves people-gatherers: people who are extroverts, or who are natural evangelists or "bringers and includers." The leader who is skilled at gathering people will empower those in his core who are natural gatherers themselves because once the church gets to any size at all, his ability to connect with large numbers will be increasingly difficult. The relational connection so necessary to the gathering process in church planting will be more and more dependent on others besides the pastor who are skilled at gathering new people.
Lost people We must be church planters who are be passionate and intentional about evangelism. Otherwise we are just moving deckchairs around on the Titanic!
We must be about planting our churches with the unchurched, one way or another, even if we have to go around walls or through windows to do it. If a church is to be healthy, if its to grow in a Biblical way, then the planter should have some sort of evidence of evangelistic orientation. Interestingly, George Barna did a study contained in his book, Evangelism That Works (Gospel Light Books, 1995). Of the churches growing in America due to evangelistic growth, he notes a fascinating (and liberating!) statistic: the majority of the Senior Pastors of these churches do not have the spiritual gift of evangelism. But without exception, every single one of them are passionate about evangelism. And that passion carries over into everything they do. It motivates their churches to be evangelistically focused. They consistently find ways to make heroes out of the natural evangelists and gatherers who are in their congregations. And they have worked hard to learn to communicate the gospel in relevant and compelling ways to the unbelievers who are coming to their Sunday services.
Visionary leadership skills In the study by Todd Hunter of failed church plants in the Vineyard, the number one characteristic associated with an unsuccessful church planter was this: They were unable to identify, recruit, train, and deploy lay leaders. It was an overwhelmingly prominent statistic 95% of unsuccessful church planters faltered in this category alone.
The undeniable truth is, it takes a person with a certain mix of gifts and catalytic abilities to pull off planting a church. And among the most important is that they have to be able to attract and lead other leaders! They need not only internal spiritual authority but also basic, pragmatic competence in growing a church if they're to attract, motivate and train others around them who can lead, as well. If a church planter can lead people to Christ and nurture them, but cannot develop and lead leaders, he will not be able to build much more than a large cell group. The church will never grow beyond what the church planter himself can directly oversee and lead.
Communication skills The planter needs to show the ability to communicate and apply Scripture in a compelling way. Of course, people are going to have varying levels of skill, here as well as varying styles. By noting "Healthy Communication Skills" as a value, I am not trying to suggest that a church planter must be capable of sermonic pyrotechnics or be equal to the verbal abilities of terry Virgo, David Holden or David Stroud. But there is no getting around the point: Church leadership is an inescapably communication-intensive enterprise. What gathers people, what feeds them spiritually, what motivates them to Kingdom-action, what creates a particular church culture is effective communication before large numbers of people. A church planter simply must have good communication skills if the plant is to be at all successful. It does not mean he has to be great. It does not mean he will not improve probably significantly, and sometimes dramatically within his first few years of ministry. But it does mean that, as a pastor, he is first and foremost one who preaches the Word. And as Scripture unyieldingly recognizes, a pastor must be "able to teach" (1 Tim. 3:2).
Intentional, Strategic Planning Skills Can you plan out a large, long-term project in a prayerful and yet intentional way? After all, that's what church planting is a very large and long-term project. Too many people start off a church plant without a big-picture idea of what it is they're trying to build. They have an idea that they want to try something new, to start a new church but they lack clarity in their vision beyond the first few steps. Or, even if they're clear in their vision, they lack the abilities to strategically and measurably plan out concrete steps towards accomplishing that vision. Similarly, some people have mistaken notions regarding the role of planning. Rather than recognizing the Biblical mandate for human plans done under the leading of the Holy Spirit, the counsel of others, in submission to the sovereignty of God, they take a more "mystical" or "spiritualist" approach which suggests that "planning" is somehow contrary to faith or walking in the Spirit. Our understanding must be that such an approach is neither wise nor Biblical, and that the best church planters are those who pray for Gods direction ahead of time, plan prayerfully, and then execute the plans.