On the front end of our church planting journey, before we were all too familiar with church planting struggles, an older friend who had planted a few churches himself told me, “God does just as much in you as he does through you.”
His counsel, as kind as it was, made my wife Kandice and me nervous. I had told my supervisor at the church where I worked that we wanted to plant a church in Tacoma, Washington. We had begun telling our friends. We had dreamed of God working through us. But too much thinking about the various spiritual renovations of God working in us—and what that might even look like—could get me jittery.
We filled our moving truck to the brim and found, through some miracle, a house in Tacoma that we could afford. I had been a college and young adult pastor, and some graduates pledged to move to Tacoma with us. Our denomination offered a building, another miracle. Things seemed neatly aligned for our assured success.
What seems obvious to me now is that church planting promises more strain than “success,” at least early on. It means you walk away from the comfort and safety of a familiar job in a familiar city, a church community, and a steady paycheck for what feels like a random experiment. A church planter steps out in faith because they sense, as much as they are able, God’s calling. In the end, church planting left me with dirt under my nails and a new appreciation for God’s unfailing love.
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Reaching for Connection
Before Kandice and I moved, I sat down with a friend who knew people in Tacoma. He wrote down 20 names of pastors, local politicians, business owners and other generally well-connected folks. He went on convincingly about how doors would open as I got to know the people behind the names. I did some forecasting myself, imagining a church filled with connectors and leaders.
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But when we arrived in Tacoma, I discovered that my projections were borne mostly out of ego and naivete. What caught me off guard was each person I met with was already a follower of Jesus who held strong views of what an ideal church should look like. And they wondered if the one I was planting would fit the bill.