As we cut the grass and trimmed the bushes at our new location in Mauldin, SC last weekend, I was reminded that planting a new church isn’t easy. Anyone who’s ever tried it can attest to this fact. When you examine the history of many great churches today, you find that “overnight” success often took months and in many cases years to be realized. The struggles with discouragement and, in some cases, opposition are more than many pastors can bear, and after the initial euphoria and excitement wear off many decide that it’s just too much work to carry on.

However, as I helped cut the grass, swept and vacuumed floors, and hung curtain rods, it wasn’t the difficulty of church planting that my mind was primarily preoccupied with. Instead, I felt a sense of exhilaration; I was engaged in activities that I had personally neglected for much too long. There are a lot of positives to planting a new church, including a number of benefits that are difficult if not impossible to duplicate in a larger, more established church. Here are a few for you to consider:

• There’s plenty of work and opportunity for ministry to go around. Unlike in a large church, where the 80-20 rule typically applies (20% of the people do 80% of the work), everyone is needed and can be used in a church plant. Talents like singing, music, and teaching are much more needed and used in small church environments.
• Cliques don’t develop as easily. The first church I founded was built (initially) on a few down-to-earth, blue-collar people. There were no “upper class” or “lower class” people. We were all united in the cause of evangelism. As the church grew, however, human nature started to take over, and people began to gravitate to others within the church who were “like themselves.” This isn’t to say that it was wrong, but rather to point out that it is what people naturally do in larger groups. However, in a small church, you have to learn how to get along with, and fellowship with, everyone, without regard to income level, social standing, and in spite of how irritating or annoying we can all be at times. In short, you are forced to behave in a Christian manner no matter who you’re with.
• Worship is less dependent on technology and more on the moving of the Spirit. In my first church plant, I originally started by preaching in living rooms, without the aid of a PA system or music. Once again, as the church grew, so did our electronic “needs”. Pretty soon I was dependent on having the right microphones, the right speakers, on the music being just right, etc. While technology and music can certainly enhance our worship, and “feeling after the Spirit” should never be an excuse for shoddy preparation or quality, neither should be become so dependent on these things that we can’t move with the Spirit without them. In a church plant, sound systems aren’t usually high quality and a much greater emphasis on lingering in the presence of the Holy Ghost is required.
• Prayer and Worship are even more important than usual. In larger churches, much of the in-service praise and worship is done by a few, with the majority sort of “along for the ride”. They enjoy the singing and worship, but they aren’t necessarily leading by example. In a small church, however, everyone has to worship; otherwise, there is no worship. The same applies to prayer. If you don’t do it, who will?
• You have to exercise your faith more often. In larger churches with larger budgets, there is less need to trust God for needs to be met, and if we aren’t careful we’ll begin to depend too heavily on ourselves and not enough on Him.
• Perhaps the single greatest blessing I’ve personally reaped from this church plant is my own revival of evangelism. When I was pastoring a larger church, it was easy to get so “busy” with church affairs that I could justify allowing the laity to do the primary evangelism and outreach. Sure, I occasionally went on visitation or taught a home Bible study, but the operative word was “occasionally.” After all, I was the busy pastor of a growing church. I couldn’t be bothered with such details as personal, one-on-one evangelism. Since starting this church, however, I have been thrown back into the fire, and I’m relearning evangelistic skills and techniques I haven’t used in years. Looking for people to witness to is actually fun again, after so many years of being “rusty”.

In a nutshell, church planting will either make you or break you. Some are attracted the initial “glamour” and excitement, but then fall away or transfer back to a larger church when they realize how much work is involved. It’s easy to avoid accountability in a large church, easy to just hide in the crowd. It’s sad, because these same people will never experience the deep and very real spiritual growth that can only be found when you move out of being served by the church and start learning service and ministry yourself.