The Gospel Coalition

Darrin Patrick is lead pastor of The Journey (in Saint Louis, Missouri), which he founded in 2002. He also serves as Vice President of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network.

I’m thankful he took some time to answers some of my questions about church planting and his new book Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission.

Darrin, the subtitle of your book is “the man, the message, and the mission.” How would you briefly summarize the biblical perspective on each, starting with the man?

The book starts with the idea that the man needs to be rescued; that is the foundation for everything. Many times when we talk about pastoral ministry we don’t start there, it is just assumed.  But we should start there: Is the man who wants to be a pastor a Christian?

Further, the man should be called by God to ministry.  He must serve God as a pastor!  To him, it is not an option; he is compelled internally and confirmed externally to be a pastor.  There is fire in his bones much like the prophet Jeremiah talked about.

And with that calling comes qualification; his character should be that which matches 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. He must be a man who is worthy of imitation and rightly to be followed by the church as the pastor follows Christ.

Beyond that, he must be dependent and determined.  We see these characteristics in Jesus and the leaders of God’s people throughout the scriptures. He is dependent on God and determined to finish the race.

He also should have the skills that pay the bills.  That is, he should have the requisite abilities from God to preach, to lead, and to shepherd.

How about the message?

The book discusses the nature of the gospel, what Jesus has accomplished on our behalf. The gospel is both objective (it is historical and exists outside of our experience) and it is subjective (it is experiential and alive in the hearts of the redeemed).  The gospel is mainly about Jesus.  He is first our savior and second our example.  So, we should motivate people with what God has done for us in Christ as the foundation for people to become like Christ in their character.

And the mission?

A church planter must keep in mind that the Son of Man was sent to seek and to save the lost and that the church is meant to be the hands and feet of Jesus to a lost world. The church helps the world to know Christ by being a countercultural community that both confounds the current wisdom of the world and contextualizes into this confused world by speaking to them with their terms but not on their terms.

Is your book only to be read by guys planning to plant a church?

No. Originally, we were going to call it The Man, the Message, and the Mission, but the publisher suggested Church Planter.  I say that to note that it was written with many transferable implications in mind for planters, but also for all people in ministry whether they are a pastor, lay person, or a man trying to follow Jesus in his everyday life.

In addition, it is written for married women who are wondering: “What should my husband’s life look like?” It is also for single women who are wondering: “What kind of man should I want to marry?”

Let’s say that you have a group of guys who all meet the biblical requirements for being an elder-pastor. What do you look for in a church-planter per se, over and above the qualifications of godly character and sound doctrine?

They are very similar, but there are a few key difference between a pastor and a church planter.

Church planters must have an entrepreneurial aptitude, a certain comfort level with being uncomfortable, a willingness to risk. He is likely not going to have a building, a set salary or established programs.  He will have to create structure and establish policy because, in a church plant, they do not yet exist.  The more entrepreneurial a person is, the more they relish that kind of situation.  But if a person is in this situation without that kind entrepreneurial aptitude, they will likely not make it, damaging themselves, their families, and the church.

Further, church planters in personality tend to be more change agents than culture maintainers.  They don’t really want to take several years to plug into an established church and create change over a long period of time, which is the God-honoring call of most pastors.  A church planter relishes a clean slate to build a gospel-centered church.

What’s the worst piece of advice that church planters frequently get?

First, the most common and most destructive advice for a church planter is to be somebody they are not.  This often has to do with personality type, ministry strengths, and spiritual gifts, and also what city or neighborhood in which the planter has been called by God.

Second, church planters are told that if they follow this particular program or this ministry model that it will result in the same fruit of the ministry model or the church he is imitating.  There are often too many factors at play for that to ever be totally true.

Third, I often hear from guys at conferences: “Don’t trust your own elders, only trust accountability from outside the church.” But I think you absolutely need your own internal accountability.  There is an epidemic of church planters who misuse sex, money, and power largely because they don’t have to submit to anyone in their church.

What would you say to a comfortable evangelical church who has no vision for planting new churches? Why should they care?

They should re-read the book of Acts, because it is very clear that church planting is normative in the early church and is a necessary factor in revival.

Further, they need to consider the raw statistics that our country is becoming less and less Christian despite more and more mega-churches.  There are more and more giant church buildings everywhere but more and more people who are not claiming any religious affiliation.

So they should go back to the Bible, to church history, and then look at the current reality.  To the degree that we are able to plan gospel-centered, missional churches, to that degree will we see spiritual renewal and hopefully revival in our lifetime.