What a Successful Church Replant Requires of You
A growing number of pastors are exploring the possibility of replanting their church once this pandemic mercifully comes to an end.
Many are church planters whose next best step is backwards, so to speak—deemphasizing Sunday gatherings, treating the people who remain as a new core team, and returning to a pre-launch missional focus.
Others, however, lead older churches that have been gutted by the events of the past twelve months. For them even the nomenclature of “replanting” may sound foreign to their congregation, perhaps even a bit threatening.
This road demands tremendous skill, courage, and empathy as a leader.
It’s a difficult path, but it may result in a strengthened church.
Last week I pointed out that this dramatic step is not the right one for every struggling church. Your congregation’s current state could fall into one of three categories: a Dying Church, a Wilting Church, or a Stagnant Church. Each has its own challenges and opportunities, and the options moving forward differ accordingly.
(I explored these options more fully in a free, short eBook. Just use the form at the bottom of this post to get the download link and password.)
If you decide that replanting is the next right step, here’s what it’ll require of you in order to be successful.
1. Strategic clarity
First and foremost you need to be clear about your vision for the replanted church. This is your opportunity to chart a new path forward; step forward confidently as the Spirit directs you.
Please note: I am not saying you have to throw out everything you’ve ever believed about the church. Nor do I mean you’ve got to adopt the latest church planting fad.
What I mean is this: you have yet to explore fully the implications of your ecclesiology. The weekly grind of pastoral ministry holds our attention on immediate challenges and opportunities, and pastors tend not to allow ourselves time to daydream about where the church might be in five years.
There are implications of what you believe about the church that have not yet seen the light of day. You don’t know what they are because they haven’t dawned on you yet.
I’m sorry if this sounds harsh; I don’t mean it to be. This is not a condemnation, simply a statement of fact. None of us has explored fully the implications of our ecclesiology. For everyone this is a work in progress.
Can I go one step further?
None of us has explored fully and traced out fully every implication of what the Scriptures teach about the church.
The kingdom is bigger than we can imagine.
The more we meditate on the Scriptures, the bigger the vision gets.
Replanting a church, then, is the perfect time for a corrective.
It’s the right time to reimagine the church, to meditate on the Scriptures, to read books from authors both within and outside of your tradition, and to daydream about what God might do in your church.
(And as you’ll see in the eBook, this suggestion—reimagining the church—is not just for church replanters. All of us pastors need to carve out time for imaginative ecclesial daydreaming.)
Ask yourself questions like these:
What do I believe about the church?
What do I believe about its mission in the world and in my community?
Where do I see its mission being fulfilled in my church and in my community?
Where do I see it going unfulfilled in my church and in my community?
And a personal favorite: in your wildest dreams, how might God bring that about where you are?
Write it down. Review it and edit it once a week. And paint a glorious picture of what your church can be.
2. Missional focus
Second, your focus must turn from congregational care to missional outreach. Too much church planting and replanting consists merely of shuffling the saints from one congregation to another.
At one level people changing churches is to be expected and not inherently wrong—in fact, it can be a great gift. What pastor hasn’t benefited from a mature believer joining their church?
But the point of the church is to make disciples, and if you’re going to replant then this is the time to give yourself to mission.
Practically speaking that means you need to spend more time with non-Christians than you ever have before. A good rule of thumb is that church planters and replanters need to spend 50% of your working hours cultivating relationships with unbelievers.
That’s right: 50%.
Suspending Sunday services frees your schedule from service planning and sermon prep, opening up time for evangelism and community engagement.
You need to prayer walk neighborhoods, meet people, build relationships, serve those in need, hear people’s stories, and expose yourself to criticisms of the church from non-believers and churchgoers.
It’s your job to lead the way in engaging non-Christians, building relationships with them, and telling them about Jesus.
You can’t outsource mission.
The point of replanting is not rebranding or redecorating or reconstituting. You replant in order to fulfill your mission of making disciples.
So plan to make a lot of time for just that.
3. Congregational buy-in
Third, the church has to be in agreement.
I made this #3 instead of #2 because, if you’re unwilling to commit to a missional focus, you should probably think twice about replanting. As hard as it is, getting congregational buy-in is not worth it if the end result is just a larger, more attractive club for Christians.
Get clarity on your vision, prioritize missional outreach in your calendar, then go to the congregation.
Now this is not an easy task: you’re asking people to leave a discouraging but known present for an exciting but unknown future. So you’ve got to spend time listening to people. Let them tell their stories and share their fears. And as you’re able, address their concerns with honesty and grace.
This challenge multiplies if your church has a lot of older members in it. Not only might your plan be deeply unsettling (no matter how visionary), they may question whether they can bring enough energy to see the plan through. That can be a legitimate concern, so don’t dismiss it too quickly.
At the same time don’t say No for them. I’ve found that older members are quick to respond to missional endeavors in the community, and they have more time to volunteer than, say, a middle-aged mother of two.
And nothing is quite as exciting as watching a senior saint using her energy to extend the help and hope of Jesus to people who don’t know him.
What a glorious investment of her retirement years!
4. External funding
Fourth, replanting a dying church requires external funding. In other words, you likely need people who are not part of your congregation offering financial support.
Perhaps getting a second job will spare you the pain of securing outside income for the church. That no doubt will help the budget.
But will it serve the mission? Will you be able to lead your congregation through a replant with an increased missional focus if you go bi-vocational?
The answer may be Yes. Plenty of co-vocational pastors lead well on mission precisely because of their other job.
Whether that is the right answer for you is a question you need to ponder carefully.
Besides, even if you decide to get a second job during a replanting phase, you probably still need money to fund your vision for the new church.
That means you’ll have to ask for money, a topic I’ll cover more fully another day.
Of these four requirements, which excites you the most?
Which scares you the most? Anything missing? Let me know in the comments below, or by replying to one of my emails.
See you next week!