Church Planting Basic Training, Part 11

Why Do Church Plants Fail?

In this article, I will simply present 10 human reason church plants fail. This is intended to provoke thought and discussion as well as elicit strategies in a core group to avoid these factors.

1. Preaching problems. As mentioned in a previous article, preaching must be the top priority of a church plant. If the founding pastor is a godly and tender shepherd but his pulpit skills are lacking, the church plant will waste valuable guest opportunities. If a core group family brings a friend to a gathering of the church in its infancy and the preacher fails to deliver a sermon with depth and conviction, that friend is likely to not come back.
2. Vision problems. A church plant that is so scattered and unfocused that it can’t get behind a clear direction is likely to fail. The old adage, “If you aim at nothing, you will definitely hit it” will come true.
3. Authority problems. One difficulty with core groups is the tendency to compete for authority and influence. The core group should view itself as facilitators to eventually bring on the key leader: the founding pastor. All should have an attitude of service to one another. Often, there is a key family or two initiating the effort. They should make it clear that their direction and facilitation is as a service to the developing church, not as a guarantee of great power in later months and years.
4. Core group theological problems. If the core group consists of wide disparity of theological viewpoints, then they will either land on the lowest common denominator theologically, thus dooming an incoming pastor to making someone mad—or the group will fail because they cannot establish who they are as a developing church.
5. Gospel focus is missing. In my opinion, the gospel needs to be elemental to every preached sermon and to the mission of the church as a whole. The gospel must be proclaimed, repeated, studied, and relished in all its glory. Failure to do so will more than likely create a church plant that is focused on something less wonderful.
6. Ecclesiology is not taught. The study of the church must be paramount and ought to continue on into the life of even the established church. How can a church plant hope to be successful or pleasing to the Lord if it doesn’t know what the church is about?
7. Being overly idealistic. Core groups may fall into the trap of not taking some basic pragmatic concerns into account. The church is not build on pragmatism (basing practice on “what works”) but neither should reasonable variables simply be ignored. For example, it’s one thing to say, “A church doesn’t need children’s ministry or nursery,” and that’s fine if that’s your direction. But what about a visiting young family with seven children who were in fact hoping to have their children discipled and taught because that’s what they know? Being overly idealistic may cost you repeat visitors.
8. Being all about theology rather than Christ. I know of one church plant that failed because their immediate identity was that of “we know more theology than you do.” I love theology and the church ought to be theologically astute, but we gather to honor Christ and grow in our trust and love for Him.
9. Inability to delegate and trust others. A core group that doesn’t allow the next generation of new members to take part in the ministry is making it clear that there are two classes of people: the core group and everyone else. This is discouraging to those excited to be part of the next “wave” of church members.
10. Core group arrogance problems. It is possible for a core group to continue to see itself as somehow above or different than the next generation of new people coming to the church. The core group may inadvertently see itself as above being shepherded by the pastor and see themselves almost as co-pastors. While this may sound a little exaggerated, I have personally experienced this dynamic in which founding members of a church become the most difficult to shepherd because they view themselves as in a different class than other members.

“Church-Planting Basic Training” is a series of 15 short bullet-point style articles aimed at encouraging Christians in the appropriate situation to consider engaging in a long-term church-planting project.