Home > Blog > How Do You Measure Church Plant Success?

How Do You Measure Church Plant Success?

By New Churches Team

Timing for how to measure church plant success can be tricky. There are two big phases: (1) core and launch team development and (2) going public. Core and launch team development take 3–9 months. This is built on the idea of going public at some point, which is usually done in the fall or spring. Think in terms of 3–6-months prep work then going public. If the question is how to measure success at 6 months, it depends on where you are in the launch cycle.

4 to 6 Months

At 4–6 months you may have started public worship. But putting a number on how many people you should have at this point is tricky. It all depends on your location and the community. In some unchurched locations, 50 people coming on a regular basis is a big church plant. If you are in a growing community that is more churched, that might be different. For church plants outside the U.S., you cannot compare to U.S. church plant numbers.

Typically at 4-6 months, you should be in public worship or near public worship, have a handful of small groups meeting and multiplying, and be mentoring and raising up leaders. Also, you would want to have a size of a core group or launch team that is appropriate for church plants in your community.

Socioeconomic Considerations

It’s not just the city and state where you are planting. You also must consider your location and the socioeconomics of those you are reaching. Depending on where you plant in a city, socioeconomics will look different. Then you have to consider how success looks different in that light.

One hundred people in a low-socioeconomic context may not allow you to be sustainable as a full-time staff member. But 100 people in a high-socioeconomic area may allow for two people to be full-time. As you show forward movement and as you are reaching people with the gospel, there tends to be more flexibility around funding from those who are supporting you financially.

Avoid Comparisons

Do not spend time comparing yourself to church planters who speak at conferences. You go to the conference and you get an unrealistic depiction of an experience you are never going to have that distracts you from the real and amazingly glorious thing. If you want to know what a successful church plant looks like in your community, find churches and church planters in your community. Learn what went well and what didn’t in your community. Set goals based on those discoveries.

Adapted from the New Churches Q&A Podcast Episode 517: Measuring Church Plant Success. Click here to listen to more to church planting, multisite, and multiplication tips.

Home > Blog > 5 Lessons Learned as a Church Planter

5 Lessons Learned as a Church Planter

By Dustin Neeley

Many people share in the success stories of their church plants. Many church planters are quick to tell you the great things happening at their current campus. As encouraging as those stories are, it’s equally as important to hear about the mistakes that people made in their church planting so that we can learn from them. Here are five mistakes and the lessons I’ve learned as a church planter.

1. Don’t underestimate the difficulty of church planting, and don’t overestimate your own ability.

This point is a two-in-one, because there were really two lessons learned here. Don’t overestimate your own ability. Sometimes it’s easy to think that success from your current position at a church will carry over into your new idea. Some people even have the idea that they are God’s gift to church planting and will be able to succeed simply because they want to. It’s crucial to humble yourself to yourself, to the church, and before the Lord. Remember why you are church planting in the first place. Be faithful, be fruitful, and listen to God.

Don’t underestimate the difficulty of church planting. Ministry is hard, but, in some ways, church planting is even harder. When there is no building, no money, no resources, and no people, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the impossibility of the task at hand. However, it is in these moments that you find your true hope in the gospel. Church planting is difficult and hard work, and the more you prepare yourself for that, the better off you will be.

2. Don’t neglect your physical health.

When responsibilities start piling up left and right, it’s easy to push your physical health to the side. You start working out less, eating more fast food, and feel your energy slowly spiraling downward. Pounds pile on, and you don’t have the energy to get yourself into shape. However, church planting is very demanding physically. It will take a toll on your body. If you’re not eating well, sleeping well, and exercising often, it’s going to be harder for you. You have to prioritize your health. Church planting is a marathon, not a sprint, and you need to treat your body like you’re training for one.

3. Don’t work all the time.

Working all of the time will wear you out. In the beginning of church planting, you may be working long hours. Like 60-80 hours a week. But this lifestyle is not sustainable. You will quickly wear out and feel drained. This will eventually take a toll on your marriage and family life. When you’re home, put your phone down and be present with your family. Establish parameters that will help you cut your work life from your family life.

4. Don’t care too much about what everyone else thinks of you.

When planting a church, it’s important to realize where you place your identity. If you put your identity into the church plant, you will succeed with the church plant and fail with the church. In order to do your job well, your identity must foremost be rooted in the gospel.

5. Don’t serve from ecclesiastical whiplash.

If you’re going to make changes within your church, do it prayerfully, slowly, and deliberately. You have to be careful about how you share this information with your church. If they feel like they are being jerked in different directions with conflicting ideas and messages, they are going to be less likely to support the ideas.

.entry-content
.et_post_meta_wrapper

by Brandon A. Cox: It’s great to be “pouring into” people. That’s a popular phrase in today’s leadership environment. I’ve used it because I like the word picture of it.

Whatever I may have learned about life and leadership, I’m supposed to be passing along to others. But what does the phrase really mean? What, exactly, are we to pour into the people we lead?

We’ve been talking a lot as a church staff lately about leadership development. I really believe it’s the key to our reaching the next level of growth and effectiveness as a church. But I’m becoming aware of a couple of obstacles.

First, I’ve never led a church beyond where we currently are. I joined the staff of a church with well over 20,000 in weekend attendance, but I wasn’t there for the years when Saddleback grew from zero to their present size.

I’m facing the reality that what we’ve done so far as a new church plant has been good, but it isn’t sufficient to take us somewhere else. It’s the whole “law of the lid” that John Maxwell speaks about.

I think, on a practical level, that means we’re going to need to do some re-structuring and shifting. We’re going to have to think outside of our already established routines. And we’re going to have to take some risks.

And the second obstacle is that I don’t think we’ve clearly defined what it is we need to be pouring into the leaders we’re developing.

Does that mean having coffee and chatting about life? Does it mean walking through a training course or workbook? I think the answer lies somewhere in between those two options.

There are at least eight gifts I hope to pour into the people I’m leading, and I hope they pass these gifts along to others too.

1. Love and concern.

That is, living with a genuine interest in the lives of those we lead. And this is more than just the occasional “how are you?” question. It’s staying tuned in and aware of how life is along the way.

Loving people is pretty basic, but profoundly powerful.

2. Knowledge and skills.

Obviously, if we’re going to raise up and train leaders, we need to pass along the knowledge and skills necessary to get things done. This comes in the form of apprenticing, coaching, resources, and modeling.

3. Responsibilities, with clearly articulated expectations.

I’ve had to learn a lot the hard way about being very clear in communicating my expectations of those I lead. I can’t assume that someone knows what results I desire to see unless I’ve painted a thorough and accurate picture for them.

---

Be sure to check out my list of 10 of the Best Books on Vision and Leadership.

---

4. Golden opportunities.

As a leader, you no doubt always have a spot to fill and a task to assign. But do you reserve the very best opportunities – the ones most sure to be rewarding – for yourself? Or do you generously empower others with them to serve up the win to someone else?

Let me stop to note that the opportunities I’ve written about thus far are the easier ones to give. The rest get harder…

5. Theology – a peek into our view of God.

You can always sit down with people and walk through some systematic theology, text-book style. But what I’m really referring to is that we speak openly of our faith in God in such a way that the people whom we lead have a bigger perspective of him from having been led by us.

6. Freedom.

It’s hard to really let people go and entrust them with the freedom to fail, to make mistakes, to do things differently than we would do them ourselves. But that kind of freedom is necessary to effective leadership. When we fail to grant freedom, the best leaders will leave.

7. Accountability.

Pastor Paul Chappell is always saying that “people only respect what you inspect.” My own tendency has been to give away tasks and responsibilities, but rarely to go and follow up on how it’s going. But good leadership requires us to check back in, to hold people accountable in a positive way.

8. Our big “YES!”

I’m not arguing that we should say yes to every idea or request that comes along. But those we lead should have the impression that it’s more likely that we’ll say “Yes!” than “No.”

Great leaders create “Yes” cultures where people are encouraged to keep being creative. Sometimes leadership means saying “yes” to people even when it’s scary to do so.

I’m still figuring out how to give these gifts well, but I’m committed to doing so in order for our leadership development culture to thrive. You can have growth, or you can have control, but you can’t have all of both.

I want to err on the side of having just enough control to keep the train on the tracks.

 

 

by Brandon A. Cox: How do you define success? Most of us think about our net worth, our ranking at work, or our preparedness for a blissful and happy retirement.

The problem with success, defined in conventional terms, is that it’s usually a moving target.

I create a sort of hypothetical picture in my mind of what success should look like, and it’s usually based on something or someone that I see in media or culture around me.

Then, when I get close, I realize it’s not enough. I could do better. I choose another target and allow my competitiveness and comparison skills to take over, pushing success out further.

But what if success could be redefined by a different metric.

What if success isn’t about how much we earn, but rather about how much we spend?

I’m not talking about blowing wads of cash and declaring ourselves successful. And there certainly isn’t anything wrong with earning a healthy income. I’m talking about spending life on worthy things.

Take David Brainerd, for example. He was kicked out of Yale for being too zealous and never finished college. His dream of being the pastor of a church never came to fruition. He talked of long bouts of depression.

He was poor, never married, and his only published work was his own journal, which didn’t release until after he died at age 29 of what was likely tuberculosis.

Pretty unsuccessful, right?

What most people miss, however, is how  David Brainerd spent his life.

When things didn’t work out at school, and as a result he couldn’t find a position as a pastor of a church, he gave the rest of his life to working among the Delaware Native American tribe.

He served them. Loved them. Clothed them. Fed them. And he shared Jesus with them.

His personal journal, once published, inspired thousands of Christian leaders who were pastors and seminary presidents and authors. His journal is still being printed and sold today.

So, what does it mean to spend your life becoming successful?

Maybe spend is a bad word. I like it because it suggests the idea of emptying myself out into the lives of other people, but a better word might be invest.

We think success is all about having more. But real success is ultimately about re-investing what we’ve been entrusted with. And our “life” is primarily made up of these spendable assets…

• You can spend your time on people and worthy causes (which should obviously include but isn’t limited to work, personal development, and rest).
• You can spend your money on people and worthy causes (which includes providing for family, giving to eternity by tithes and offerings, and helping others out when needs arise).
• You can spend your spiritual and emotional energy on people and worthy causes (which means encouraging, counseling, advising, mentoring, coaching, listening, and loving people).

Success isn’t always found in climbing. It’s often found in bowing.

Success isn’t always discovered by earning. It’s accumulated by spending.

David Brainerd discovered real success in twenty-nine years while getting kicked out of school and battling disease and depression. It’s always within reach. It’s just a matter of spending life wisely.