The Economics Of Church Planting In The U.S.

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about the reasons for the disconnect between how churches were planted in the New Testament and how they’re planted today. I have because I meet with church planters or church planting organizations many times a year who looking for ideas, connections, or money. My own church has planted a dozen here in the U.S. and many more abroad. I’ve found it helpful to constantly remind myself how we got here.

In the N.T. Paul, Barnabas, Timothy and others traveled from city to city, generally staying there anywhere from a few months to a few years teaching until there were one or more “house churches” led by new converts the Bible often refers to as elders. These elders weren’t anything like elders in most churches today. They were effectively the pastors. While in the city Paul often had a day job making tents to support himself so he wasn’t a burden to these new believers. And we have no biblical evidence that any of these elders ever quit their day jobs to serve their churches fulltime either. The budgets for these house churches were used almost exclusively to care for the poor in their church, or believers in other cities, or to provide Paul with travel expenses enabling him to get to still more places to establish more house churches. There were no building expenses, no salaries, no seminaries, just an army of sold-out followers of Jesus introducing their friends and neighbors to Jesus and the gospel.

Later, as the church grew a number of men served as “bishops” over a large number of churches in a geographic area and these were largely fulltime paid positions. And by the second or third centuries there were church buildings going up in almost every city with paid pastors, or priests. The Church of Jesus Christ had morphed into a full-blown institution and while there were small house churches in villages and towns, they were often viewed as provincial and “not really churches”

Fast forward to Protestant Reformation. Until then there was only one predominate denomination in Europe, the Catholic Church. In just a few decades there was a sudden explosion in new denominations each with genourous believers who could help their denomination send fulltime paid missionaries and pay to begin new churches in new areas of the country. In other words it was largely denominations which planted churches, not individuals.

Today, while most denominations still plant churches there are many more independent, non-denominational churches and young seminary grads and would-be church planters who are wanting to plant churches on their own. But here’s the “dirty little secret,” they all find out sooner, or later; They will need to either raise enough money before they begin to operate for several years, or they will need find enough Christians already attending church elsewhere who will want to attend this new church to make the budget fairly fast. Because they’re not likely to attract enough non-Christians fast enough who have no history of stewardship to make payroll.

That’s why you don’t find many church planters spending years doing the time consuming work of knocking on doors and building relationships with non-Christians. Most find a school gymnasium to rent, get a worship band together and pray that enough Christians show up to cover expenses so they can afford to take the time later to build relationships with non-Christians.

Micro-churches

In the last couple of decades there has been a major movement to get back to the New Testament style of church. Men and women who have no intention of making a living being a pastor are starting home, or house churches. Most are based on either a Place, a Pain, or a Profession.

A Place; They want to plant a church in a specific neighborhood, or small town to serve a small geographic area.

A Pain; They want to evangelize people who are in recovery, or should be. Or the church hopes to attract homeless people, or vets with PSD, or lonely singles. In other words they are wanting to serve people who may not feel welcome, or understood by established churches.

A Profession; They want to attract and serve a specific vocational group such as health care professionals, or governments workers. I’ve met with builders who are planting churches for the people they know in the building trades because those are the people they deal with every day. They see them on the job. They hear their crushed dreams, their doubts and temptations and step into their lives by giving them a place to belong. In Tampa Florida they’ve planted churches for garment workers, or for people who can only meet in the evenings because that’s when their shift is out.

The beauty of these kinds of churches is they only ask attendees for money if someone in the church has a need. If a single parent is in the hospital, or rehab it’s other attendees who take care of their kids. The downside is that these churches tend to stay small. The upside is that these churches tend to stay small! Therefore everyone knows everyone and they truly do care for one another. No mega- church Congregational Care pastor showing up at the hospital to call on a church attender they barely know. These house churches are very much in the tradition of the New Testament churches.

However, so far the “rent a gym and start a praise band” is still, the most popular church planting method. It’s almost the only way a seminary trained pastor can make a living. I just wish they didn’t have to.