Why do new churches sometimes go wrong and close? If you intend to help plant one, you should probably know the answer.
Twelve Key Factors
Based on a survey completed by over eighty church planters around the world, Dan Steel’s Wise Church Planting analyses twelve key factors that befall new churches as they get off the ground. Given many of the planters surveyed are still sporting their wounds, it’s a book filled with sobering humility and admission.
The first six factors are internal to the plant and the planter. For example, pressures on a leader’s character and motivations (21–30, 31–42); gaps in their gifting or team (57–66); and the unexpected difficulties that might face their family (67–76). None of these are small—or even that surprising—and yet often it isn’t until a plant starts that they are realised or exposed.
Wise Church Planting: Twelve Pitfalls to Avoid in Starting New Churches
Dan Steel
Wise Church Planting: Twelve Pitfalls to Avoid in Starting New Churches
Dan Steel
Almost a third of new churches don’t survive four years. Gathering real experiences and tackling the challenges headfirst, Steel encourages us to step out of the pressured drive for short–term gains and resist the allure of superficial successes. As our gaze shifts from making converts to making disciples, we are equipped and energised to persevere in establishing the roots that will cultivate thriving churches. In the midst of discouragement, there is hope for struggling church plants and struggling planters: God has promised to build his church.
The second set of six factors Steel lists are external. Here Steel means things like unrealistic strategies and assumptions from others (101–110); difficulties or ambiguities in the relationship with a sending church (111–124); and the opposition met from other churches or the community on the ground (147–156).
Part of Steel’s aim is to prove how tangled and complex a beginning church plant can be. There are “you” problems and “them” problems, and both should give us reasons to think, plan, change, and pray (16).
An Exercise in Self-Reflection
To make his case, Steel essentially offers an exercise in self-reflection. For each of the twelve factors, Steel moves from hypothetical scenarios, quotes and statistics, and then to an analysis through a biblical lens. In essence, the reader is asked: “Picture yourself doing X, Y and Z. How do you think you would go if this were you?”
As someone quite accustomed to skipping reflection questions, I was surprised by how useful they were. “What mixed motives do you have for planting a church?” (29), “Where do you find it hard to collaborate in leadership?” (64), “How will you feel if things don’t go well?” (97).
I don’t think you can profit from the book without stopping to meaningfully answer these questions.
For Steel, again and again the planters quoted expressed that they would have done things differently if they had only known. If only they had foreseen. If only they had self-reflected.
Given that each planter identified an average of four or more major issues that plagued their church, to not reflect would be an exercise in folly—leading to the same mistakes again and again (16, 157).
Some Questions
While I found some of the hypotheticals to be provocative or moving, occasionally they also felt a little artificial. That is the risk of the “John Smith was a young church planter…” kind of genre: rendered fictional to be relatable, it can be jarring when it isn’t.
I also wondered about the book’s working definition of “wisdom.” Broadly conceived, much of the book fits into the category of prudence. Don’t shout at your elders. Tame your expectations. Write a good strategy. It’s the kind of thing we might call little “w” wisdom.
The other kind of wisdom, though—big “W” wisdom— is the kind of Wisdom shaped by the cross. The kind that works not only despite weakness and failure but through it (1 Cor 1:22–25); the kind that sees problems and obstacles as par for the course (2 Cor 11:21–29).
What does it look like to be wise in a job that requires us to act the fool? I don’t think this discussion is entirely missing, but I suspect Wise Church Planting might have benefited from a stronger ending on this note.
Meeting its Aims
Reading this book has been somewhat of a live experiment. I haven’t planted a church, but I have worked in a church plant for two years. God-willing, I’m working towards leading a church plant in the future.
Wise Church Planting hasn’t taught me the A–Z of beginning and perfecting a church plant, but it has underscored several pitfalls to avoid. I am persuaded my own character is the biggest risk factor for disaster. Period. I am convinced that the relationship with a sending church is critical and requires deliberate and formal steps. And I am eager to not be misled by my own expectations or those of others.
I do think I am wiser for reading this book. Other desiring or prospective church-planters would be too.
