I’ve been involved or around the church planting movement for almost 20 years. First as an interested observer and then as a church planter. I’ve seen growth movements, Gospel-centered, missional, fresh expressions, emerging, emergent, apostolic… (I could go on here!) Yet, as I consider what church planting is, and maybe what it has been over the past 25 years, that could be one of the issues. Perhaps inadvertently, we have baptised the language of business start-ups. We talk about “launching” churches, “scaling” ministries, finding “product–market fit” for the Gospel. We platform “founder-planters,” celebrate hustle, cultivate ‘reach’ and measure “traction,” as we develop “multi-site” franchises of our brand. (Even writing that almost made me shiver!) Of course, this entrepreneurial imagination is seductive because it promises clarity and drive. We have a founder with a vision, a plan to execute, factual ways to prove success and growth. But when church planting is primarily framed as an entrepreneurial endeavour, several dangerous distortions creep in, primarily that of the planter’s identity, the church’s purpose, and the nature of the Spirit’s work.
I’m not against creativity, risk, or innovation. I’m against allowing a business-start-up model to colonise our theology of mission and the pastor’s soul. As Eugene Peterson warned decades ago, “The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers…” (Link). This isn’t a dig at my American brothers and sisters, because this is a global phenomenon now, and one we all need to be conscious of as we seek to plant churches.
Founder or Servant?
The entrepreneurial script trains us to see the planter as a founder-CEO. Think Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, even politically like Donald Trump. Founders are indispensable. they are the brand. They are disruptors of the status quo. That script yields an intoxicating cocktail of responsibility and recognition from this person as they exclaim “this rises or falls on me.” However, we can also get drawn into this as followers, when we cultivate an environment that allows this attitude to thrive. Whether you are in a small or large church, the draw is the same. But the Bible insists on something humbler and truer: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:6–7). I mean, Paul could have had a platform, but he shirked it for the sake of Christ.
Andrew Root has described the cultural mood that tempts pastors to swap sacrament for strategy, presence for performance. “In the age of the entrepreneurial pastor, the church building itself was as secular and utilitarian as any office complex.” (Link). The warning isn’t about the architecture around us it’s about imagination. When we see ourselves as managers of a ‘god-product’, we stop waiting on the living God. Henri Nouwen sketches the counter-imagination for Christian leadership: “The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility… but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.” (Link). If planting requires grit and initiative (it does!), the cross tells us what those gifts are for, which is self-giving love, not self-promotion.
What We Count, We Become
Over the past 10 years I have worked full-time, and then freelance as a business development manager. I still at times have no idea what I’m doing! Yet, the plan for business is quick one dimensional – it’s about the bottom line. Entrepreneurial ventures live or die by metrics whether it’s revenue, products, users. Translate that to church life and we’re tempted to count attenders, giving, and followers. But what we count, we become. Timothy Keller, reflecting on Paul’s agricultural metaphors, observed that “both success and faithfulness by themselves are insufficient criteria for evaluating ministry.” (Link). Faithfulness without wisdom can be irresponsible and “success” without fruit can be hollow. Fruitfulness is different, the Spirit’s character formed in a people over time. Perhaps it is why so many of us as pastors and planters struggle, we are looking to our production rather than fruitfulness in the Spirit.
This helps explain why the “move fast and break things” ethos misfires in a church. Yet, even though we’ve seen this explode quiet spectacularly over the last 25 years, we seem to have short memories. The kingdom’s time-scale is patient, and its growth is often imperceptible. It’s an easier mindset to get into in rural contexts as the pace of life is slower, less bustling. When we have visited the city for trips, the speed with which everything moves is exhausting. Even more so if as church leaders and churches we are trying to keep up. It is hard to reflect as a follower of Jesus when things are blurry with speed. Growth matters, yet even Paul refuses to own outcomes: “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:7).
Treating church as a start-up subtly re-casts people as customers. We “acquire” and “retain,” we design experiences around “capturing” potential new people. I watch the social media feeds of churches near university areas ‘compete’ for the latest batch of students, offering ‘vibrant’ music, ‘practical’ teaching, even free food! But consumer logic corrodes communion in Christ as a church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned that “He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter.” (Link). Idolising ourvision for community, our brand, a ‘vibe’, or a curated culture destroys the difficult, graced community Christ actually gives.
Founder’s Syndrome
Even in a business context, history notes the peril of founder-centrism. When a leader becomes the brand or ministry itself, the foundation seems to be personality and gifting rather than something truly enduring. Harvard Business School summarises the trade-off starkly. “Most entrepreneurs want to make a lot of money and to run the show… it’s tough to do both.” (Link). Translate that to ministry and the danger is not necessarily financial, but spiritual. Their control calcifies, organisations orbit the founder, succession becomes fraught. When a leader’s name is the asset, the body of the church becomes brittle. Each tribe has their leaders and personalities, conferences recycle the same keynote speakers, and these leaders then become gatekeepers for succession.
Eugene Peterson again saw this pathology far earlier in the church. “The pastors… are preoccupied with shopkeeper’s concerns, how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street.”(Link). It’s tragic (and telling!) that his words read like a playbook for marketing and yet have found a place within the church. Lesslie Newbigin gives us a better grammar for the church’s purpose. The church, he wrote, exists “as sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s redeeming grace for the whole life of society.” (Link). That threefold telos resists commodification. A sign points beyond itself (not to a brand). An instrument serves another’s use (the Spirit’s, not ours). A foretaste whets appetite for a feast still to come (eschatology, not empire). Dallas Willard also grounds our vision in God’s work, not our own when he said that “the aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with Himself included… as its prime sustainer.” (Link). To plant churches is to see develop this kind of community not to launch products, expand our brands or tribe, or even to disrupt other movements or expressions of church.
But Isn’t Church Planting Essential?
Yes. We should plant churches persistently and everywhere – I’ve given my life to this. As Tim Keller argued years ago, “The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy…”. (Link) The point is not whether to plant, but how. We plant as servants, not founders, as witnesses to Christ, not brand managers, and as a people praying for growth we cannot manufacture.
So what does it look like to plant beyond an entrepreneurial expression:
Presence over platform. Prioritise kitchen-table pastoring over stage craft. If people only see you on social media or a stage, then the shepherd won’t smell like the sheep. Walk your ‘parish’. Learn names. Be present.
Partnership over heroic expansion. Think about working with existing congregations before starting a new one. Consider whether town A needs another expression of church, or whether going to an unreached area might be a better use of Kingdom resources. Bless other churches in public. Refuse competitive tactics.
Patience over panic. When the numbers dip, resist sprinting into gimmicks. Entrepreneurial language and attitudes demand big results quickly, however the church should move in a patient ferment rather than a boom and bust.
Poverty of spirit over polished performance. Embrace the modest, the ordinary, and the often unmeasurable. Receive your church as a gift before you treat it as a task. These aren’t ‘our’ people to use, but a family of faith we are a part of to see God’s glory demonstrated in our context. Love the people in front of you, both their sins and strangeness, their celebrations and sorrows, more than your dream for them. That’s how a church plant becomes a church.
Lastly…
Newbigin’s sentence has been a plumb line since I read it during my Masters study. And it is a good way to evaluate what we are aiming to do as church planters, or those interested in church planting. Is your plant a sign (do people glimpse God at work here?), an instrument (are you participating in the Spirit’s work rather than manufacturing your own?), a foretaste (does this community give a little glimpse of Heaven)? If not, perhaps we need to repent, not of planting but of the imagination driving it.
We need entrepreneurial energy of course. God often calls pioneers who can start things from nothing. And these people are normally a bit crazy (and I count myself among them!) But the church does not need founders. It needs servant-shepherds, those who will plant seeds, water faithfully, and wait, I mean really wait, for the God who gives the growth. And in that waiting, it will look less like a start-up and more like a little flock of sheep who are listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd and seeking to worship Him and see His Kingdom advance.