Ministry Chronicles: Sending Church Step 2: Initial Questions

In the initial installment of this series, I ran down how we at Mt. Olive Baptist Church started our involvement with church planting through Send Network: Arkansas. Look at the "sendingchurch" label for that one and for any future installments.

One thing that needs to be said here: when you are introducing something new to a church family, especially a traditional church that has never done it before, there will be questions. Some of those questions will appear silly, nonsensical, or obvious to those who have been down that road before. That does not mean these are bad questions. It just indicates that there are larger gaps in understanding between many church folks and the people who are in one niche of Baptist life.

(By contrast, I have a feeling there are normal parts of being a traditional church pastor that some church planting folks would have an understanding gap about...)

None of these questions are shared with an intention of shaming the askers. Each one of these came from someone who had the best interest of Mt. Olive Baptist at heart. They were trying to understand and make sure we do what we are supposed to do in following Jesus.

(Also quick note: I did not write these down word-for-word, so in the tradition of Herodotus, I shall give the sense of the question as best I know.)

First question: "Why do they want us to be their "Sending Church"?" It's one thing when your church is sending out members to start something that the church is aware of; it's another matter when it's strangers that only the pastor has met. It's a good question.

Second question: "Why does El Dorado need another church?" It had close kin in the question "Why not just try harder with Southside El Dorado?" These are good questions. There are some long debates about whether or not it's necessary to start new churches especially in towns with lots of churches. I'll shortcut the debate and simply say that there are people who are going unreached by the churches we've got, then we may need more churches. As to shutting down the old one and starting a new one: sometimes, the organizational baggage is just heavy enough that the best thing to do is close the old shop and start a new one.

Those questions are better answered by asking this question: Do we trust the people we are working with to listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit? That's a critical part of this situation. If you are partnered with a church planting team that you do not trust to be praying and following Jesus, then you need to back up and start with some prayers and reconsideration.

Third question: "Why are they asking us instead of a church in El Dorado?" First part is that you need to trust the team. The second thing we should consider is that sometimes churches aren't particularly as willing to help out locally. It's harder to suggest that we support a church down the street from us that might nab people that our church could reach. Unfortunately, we tend to judge churches and pastors on items that only show on spreadsheets and it can be hard to get past that.

Fourth question: "How much money will this cost us?" Whether or not your church has a lot of money, you will face this question. The truth is, you have options. You can contribute as much as possible, but you can also just be part of stewarding resources coming in from other sources. This is probably where our church is going to start out: Send Network money will come in, we'll forward it onward. We'll provide administrative help as part of our overall normal spending for such things.

Fifth question: "What happens if they need a pastor in a few years? Will you leave and go pastor that church?" Part of the underlying question here is even broader: "What will you do when they need something and we need the same thing? How do we make that work?" 

Sixth question: "How long are we doing this?" Ties in somewhat to the previous question: will this distract us from our work?

Seventh question: "What are we going to need to do as part of this?" Partly driven by folks who do not want to make just a verbal commitment and not really doing anything else. They want to know that there is meaningful involvement in the decision.

Eighth question: "Are we going to need to send people to be part of the new church?" Our church helped start a church more than 4 decades ago in the model of the time: preaching point, mission church, all frequently started out of realizing that "lots of people are driving a long way to our church and they all come from this area." 

Ninth question: "Will this take up too much of the pastor's time?" alongside "Pastor, you just recently nearly died because your blood pressure went nuts, can you handle adding stress/work to your plate?" There are certain parts of this partnership that, especially until someone else in the church is ready to step up into a leading role in it, will fall to the pastor. Be ready to address this. Especially if there are things that need doing at church that you haven't been able to keep up with.

Tenth question (and last one for now): "What does our church gain from doing this?" Answer that as best you can.