Advice to my younger self: reflections from a church planter
Masters student Owen Cottom reflects on his experiences of church planting - and shares his advice to anyone considering this calling for themselves!
It sounds like a cliche, but in my experience church planting has been a series of journeys. Dream to reality; couple to core group; gathering in the home to gathering in a public place. Journeys towards our first new believers, first baptisms, first births, first heartaches, first deaths.
These journeys have been a thrill to experience with our Grace Cardiff family. But the most important journey for me has been the journey towards finding sustainable joy in Christ in the midst of the pressures and pains that come with the rollercoaster of church planting. Here are a couple of the lessons I have learned along the way that I wish I had lived in the good of sooner:
Remember it’s ultimately God’s work, not yours.
Many church planting manuals will tell you that the planter must be an entrepreneur, a master-initiator. Though there is some truth to this, I have at times found the caricature to exert a crushing weight of expectation; “It’s all on you, Owen. You’ve got to make something happen here.”
The reality of the gospel tells us quite the opposite. It tells us “unless the LORD builds the house, the builder labours in vain” (Psalm 127:1). It tells us “a man can receive only what is given him from heaven” (John 3:27). It assures us that Jesus is building His church and nothing will stop Him (Matthew 16:18). And in telling us these things, it frees me to be a participant in what God is doing instead of the initiator of my own little work.
This truth also frees us from an unhealthy allegiance to our church “brand”. If we see our church plant as God’s work then we become less possessive over it as something that has got to “succeed” and more freed to cheer on the fame of Christ in all churches in our communities. We become less obsessed by so-called “results” and more concerned with what glorifies God. We become less distracted by what is not yet and more focussed on loving the flock that God has gathered.
“We become less obsessed by so-called “results” and more concerned with what glorifies God.”
So I would tell my younger self to remember that God is the Grand-Initiator. He is the Father who waits with open arms, the Son who leaves heaven to find sinners, the Spirit who births the church.
Remember what your work is.
Many might read the first big lesson and think, “Sounds great! But what do I actually do?” The work sometimes feels endless; missional opportunities in an under-reached area, pastoral needs in a young congregation, administrative tasks to establish the church well. In the early days of planting my work felt reactive; responding to issues as they arose, struggling to find a gravitational centre for my labour.
But as I have settled into the truth that I am a participant in what God is doing, it has helped me to give myself to what matters most in my work. Like the farmer in the Parable of the Growing Seed (Mark 4:26-27), I am called to sow and sleep.
Firstly, sow the seed of the Word. We need the many gifts of Christ’s body to be mobilised for the building up of the church (Acts 6:3) but as a church planting pastor I am called first to proclaim Jesus to our community and our flock (Acts 6:4). As Luther famously said, “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends ... the Word did everything.”
“As a church planting pastor I am called first to proclaim Jesus to our community and our flock.”
Secondly, sleep. The farmer sleeps and rises and the seed grows (Mark 4:27). A rested church planter may sound like an oxymoron, but if I am frantically running around trying to be everything for everyone what does that say about the Saviour I am commending to this people?
I would tell my younger self to rest in Christ and to take a nap! If the King of heaven is building the church, then I can clock off every now and then. In fact, it’s vital that I do, for in doing so I preach to my own soul the core lesson of church planting - I am a participant, He is the Grand-Initiator.
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