June 8, 2010 by Dave Harvey
Categories: Church planting
We’ve been talking governors. A governor is something that controls the speed of an engine. Install a governor and it slows you down; pop it off and you go much faster. When it comes to church planting, Sovereign Grace has intentionally installed certain governors—values that help us control the speed and quality of our growth.
In the previous posts we looked at the first two governors:
Governor 1: A commitment to finding the right guy.
Governor 2: A commitment to providing the right guy with the right resources.
Having the right church planter and the right resources (team and finances) promotes the viability of a church plant.
In this post we want to think not just about viability (the likelihood of a successful church plant) but sustainability. Sustainability is about more than individual plants; it is about the ability of a church-planting movement to maintain a coherent and consistent approach to church planting. Viability requires a focused commitment to the success of a church plant. Sustainability requires an effective infrastructure within a movement to make sure that we stay on track with who we are and what God has called us to do. These final three governors are aimed at sustainability.
Let me introduce you to the three final governors in church planting:
Governor 3: A commitment to actively care for a church planter before he goes and after he arrives.
If you’ve been in the church-planting world long enough, you’ve probably heard stories of church planters who find themselves isolated and “dying on the vine.” Sometimes this occurs because a guy feels called to start a work and launches independent of care, connection, or coaching. Other times the promises of support go unrealized. No matter what the cause, church-planter burnout is one of the major factors in failed church plants.
Sovereign Grace Ministries is a “family” of churches. That means we are committed not just to ministry partnership, but to ministry fellowship. Partnership often means mechanics and funding. Fellowship means ongoing relationship, encouragement, training, correction, and accountability.
Back in the day, we were a small enough group that an SGM guy could know almost every other pastor in the movement, and enjoy deep friendships with more than a few. These relationships provided ready means of counsel, encouragement, and resource sharing, and a healthy dose of learning from each other’s mistakes. As we’ve grown, this happens more on a regional level. And as Sovereign Grace churches continue to multiply, we need to consciously set up structures of care for existing churches and new church plants.
The SGM Leadership Team and Church Planting Group spend a lot of our time these days think-tanking for the future, in order to preserve the relational nature of Sovereign Grace care for leaders. Whatever the ultimate structure looks like, it will be based on our core commitment to care for each church planter and each established church through leader-to-leader relationship. Here’s our ongoing commitment: We will govern our growth to make sure every church planter, at every step of church planting, experiences care through relationships with other leaders.
Governor 4: A commitment to ensure that Sovereign Grace values run deep in church plants.
One of the remarkable things we’ve seen over the years is how many gifted and highly trained men have come to Sovereign Grace Ministries expressing a desire to plant churches. Frankly, we feel a little bit like we’re being asked to play in a pro-am with Phil Mickelson, and we’re the “am” of the pairing. But we’ve also learned that there are things at the heart of who we are as a family of churches that can’t be downloaded from a website, read in a book, or imbibed from a conference. One of the things we must ensure is that our church planting doesn’t become the wheel out of alignment—you know, pulling us off track a little bit at a time. This can happen when the values of a movement diminish bit by bit through expansion and innovation.
One of the things that every church planter knows is that he is not planting his own work. The fruit of his labor has come through a vital partnership with a sending ministry. The church planter has received a stewardship of values that he in turn must embody and transfer to others. Because internalizing core values is essential, this will always govern our growth.
Governor 5: A commitment to endurance, not just impact.
In the early days, the idea of church planting as a primary missions strategy was strange to a lot of folks. But church planting now has some serious street cred. It’s become normal, if not normative, in many denominations and families of churches. I think that’s great because it provides us the opportunity to learn more. We’d be foolish to sit back in our little SGM world and pretend that we’ve got it together. That’s why I love connecting with other church-planting guys—getting up close to what they are doing, and getting their eyes and insights on us. As C.J. has always said, nothing we’ve ever done is original. We’ve just become good at adapting what others have done; if we ever stop learning from others we might as well cash it in.
As we’ve matured (relatively speaking) we are also seeing that success can’t be defined in present impact. To be biblical and worthy of the costs it demands, success has to be long term. We’re talking enduring, multi-generational sustainability. We can’t think of five year plans—we have to think in 50 years. We have to think about how to build now so that we have something meaningful to hand over to the next generation.
Here’s a principle that now runs deep in Sovereign Grace Ministries: gospel-centered means gospel-transferring (2 Timothy 2:2). Gospel-transferring means that we’re building church models that proclaim the gospel, apply the gospel, and seek to impress the gospel upon the next generation. We’re not looking to cultivate a passion for the way Sovereign Grace does ministry. We want the passion to be confined to the Savior himself.
Honestly, discerning those things is an ever-present challenge for all ministries. It’s sometimes hard to see where our present practice will help transfer the gospel and what is, well, just our way of doing things. Understanding the difference and building in light of it is the only way this thing will last.
Conclusion
It’s funny, originally I wanted to call this cluster of blog posts, “Why So Slow???” But as I thought about it, the goal is not slow growth, it’s wise growth. And that takes patience and pace in church planting.
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Dave Harvey
leads international expansion and church planting for Sovereign Grace
Ministries and is based in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. For more
information about the Sovereign Grace church-planting process, click here.