Lessons from a Church Planter

Seven things to know about church planting

By George H. Martin

Thank you, Kevin for asking me to share some things I learned in being a church planter. I was engaged along with others like Kevin who were focused with seeing the Episcopal church reverse its decline in the 80s and 90s. Sadly, as we notice from Kevin’s blog, the trends continue. At the same time, we have so much to offer, and it’s always a good time to consider starting over again. Most our diocese traces their roots back to bishops and clergy who thought of themselves as missionaries. One Bishop in North Dakota even had a railroad car that was the cathedral.  With that in mind let me share some of the things I learned about church planting—and often learned the hard way.

1.     Why do we start a new church community? (Please note the added word community!) Back in 1986 when Ss. Martha and Mary Episcopal Church began in Eagan Minnesota. It was a suburb just south of St. Paul and it was going to grow from 20,000 to over 70,000n in a very few years. Other nearby cities would grow exponentially as well. Our diocese wanted to reach all the Episcopalians who could be found there. Mistake #1.

What I had to learn after a first year when attendance plateaued at 70 was that our target audience was wrong. We needed to have a church for people who didn’t have a church, or whose story was that for various reasons they just stopped attending. I had a Lutheran pastor colleague starting a church by door-knocking. I assumed that made sense given the prevalence of Lutheran churches in Minnesota. Would this work for me? I asked Larry for help and with his guidance knocked on about 400 doors. And no one came to worship with us. I went back to Larry. He said, “Oh you need to go back to those who might be interested. It’s about relationships.” That’s what changed for me. I was seeking people who didn’t go to church. And what happened? Over 14 years and 14,000 doors I knocked on we had average attendance of 325 every Sunday.

2.     The need for mature leadership and the long process of teaching what membership means.

A common experience among new church planters is that some of the most enthusiastic new members do not have the grounding to be good and trust-worthy leaders. That is why some evangelicals let a new church planter fish within the church sponsoring a new plant. They can begin with a core group of more mature followers of Jesus. I was blessed with a few Episcopalians willing to work for a vision of a church, but not one with stained glass, organ music or pews. There is nothing wrong with liking those parts of our church, but they are not needed when forming community. And you can have a real Episcopal church with clear windows, a piano, and comfortable movable chairs in a multi-purpose worship space.

3.     When the goal is having a building?

In some ways this normative when starting a new church. It was energizing for the early members of Ss. Martha and Mary as we started meeting in a funeral home and for many years in a school cafeteria bring our little trailer with its Altar guild supplies, books, and hymnals each Sunday. It never got old. When new people arrived, they helped set up and take down chairs. You got be involved and needed from your very first Sunday.

And then we had a building! What now? Oh, we had to be the church for the community. That was a tall but worthwhile task. The building could be a welcoming place. We could do mission work from it. We could offer musicals which we did. We could belong to the issues of our city.

4.     What the founding Pastor has to know?

One of the things that the apostle Paul did was to settle into the world where he would teach, preach, and found new communities of Jesus Messiah people. He traveled a lot, but not often. That’s a rule for new church planters. Live where you plant. More than that learn to love where you plant. Learn the leadership. Follow the sports and school activities. Be visible and present Monday to Sunday. Wear a nametag or logo shirts and jackets with your church name on it. If you are an Episcopal priest know that the collar can be off-putting for some who experienced abuse in a church setting. I wore a nametag which said “Pastor George”. Obviously, lots of Lutherans could relate!

Get to know the leadership in the community. Know what the issues are. Partake in the community festivals. We always had a float in the 4^th of July parade! I was also a police chaplain in the community and as I look back to that time most of us who served in that capacity were new church planters.

5.     Where will you get your support?

A new church planter and one or two from the sponsoring committee need to get some training from experienced church planters. In the Episcopal Church, the director of Evangelism offered twice yearly seminars called “Start-Up Start-Over.” There were a great many similarities in strategies facing pastors doing one of these ministries. Evangelical denominations also know a great deal about church plants. Once a pastor begins a church plant his or her support will be found by making friends with other pastors in the same ministry. Neighboring Episcopal clergy, in my experience, will be threatened that you will be stealing their members. So much for collegiality! In my experience you also want to keep your bishop and diocesan support people in the know, but chances are that few will readily grasp your methodologies or strategies.

6.     Hospitality to guests has to be excessive, constant, and beyond what people normally expect.

As the founding pastor you need to be at the door welcoming all who come. Forget the normal routine at shaking the hands of all who came to worship. Consider welcome people as they come up to the front door. Be out front in all kinds of weather. At the church I started we loved it when it was raining on a Sunday morning. We had large umbrellas and along with my welcoming team walked in the rain with existing members and all those new under an umbrella. Sometimes we said,” You don’t get this at every church.”

The welcoming team I mentioned above needs to be ready to give your guests a nametag and show them around if need be. When worship starts that same team needs to stay on duty. So many testing a church for the first time want to come in late and slip in the last pew. You want to the welcome extended into the start of worship. When worship is concluded it is time to thank the newcomers and get to know them. Some churches practice follow-ups with homemade bread or flowers. We also hardly let a month pass by when we didn’t have a dinner or some invitation for our guests to come together.

Please note I mentioned “guests” and not “visitors.” There is a world of differences as a guest is supposed to be treated almost like a member of the family. When worship is also over the follow-up with your guests just begins.

7.     Every now and then you will find someone coming for the first time with a well-grounded faith story. 

Be surprised and happy when that happens but keep your focus on forming disciples. That begins with your teaching and preaching grounded in scripture, and not in our case the prayer book. I even learned from my evangelical church pastor friends to preach sermon series. We also had formation groups for those new to our community so they would comprehend what membership meant.

  

Who Are We Missing

Recently, I was listening to an interview on The Living Church Podcast with the Reverend Russell Levenson, the Rector of St. Martin’s in Houston. They were discussing Russ’s new book Witness to Dignity about President George Bush and his wife Barbara. The senior Bushes were long time members of St. Martin’s. Russ was their pastor in the last chapter of their lives. He preached at Barbara Bush’s funeral at St. Martin’s and President Bush’s at the National Cathedral both of which were televised.

During the insightful interview, Russ made mention of the over 100 letters and emails he received after Barbara’s service that talked about the beauty of the service and how this had touched people. A couple of people said that they were so affected by this that they returned to Church because of just watching the funeral. Several others talked about the way our traditional liturgy had spoken to them in a deeply meaningful and spiritual way. St. Martin’s is large and most of its services are Rite I. Russ’ reflection was how many people have been drawn to the Episcopal Church over the years by the beauty and message of the Prayer Book liturgy including himself.

As I listened, I was reminded that three of the largest Episcopal Churches, St. Martin’s, Incarnation in Dallas, and All Soul’s in Oklahoma City are traditional liturgy congregations. All have sophisticated members, many who are leaders outside the Church. They include teachers, academics, politicians, and artists. All three have a school and all have a very diverse generational congregation. They also have racial diversity on a par with the overall Episcopal Church. I should also mention that all three tend to stand apart from their dioceses, but all make major contributions to them in money and leadership.

In my 50 years of ordained ministry, I too like Russ, observed the number of people that I have seen drawn to traditional Anglican liturgy combined with outstanding music, outstanding preaching, excellent adult education, and outstanding pastoral care for members. This is what these three congregations offer consistently. There are other such places around TEC, but we should acknowledge that today they are not standard Episcopal congregations but largely outliers.

What I realized in reflecting on this was the truth about our situation in TEC today. These congregations represent the kind of people that our Church has largely abandoned during our rapid decline since 2000. What does this have to say about our denomination? When one visits these congregations, we are looking at the remaining remnant of what used to comprise a large number of members who are now missing. I would even say who we have alienated and driven away. These are traditional Anglican/Episcopalians, people who loved the beauty of our liturgy combined with the intellectual stimulation of our common life and love of high English culture.

I know in writing this that those Episcopalians who like what TEC is today would want to object and say that these missing people were reactionary, homophobic, and even racist. Of course, the above congregations show us how these are overly simple projections. If you attend in person as I have and visit the coffee hour, you will meet many people who are leaders of society on the local, regional, and even national level.

What I have seen happen since 2000 is not a defection of conservative Christians, but the marginalizing of traditional Episcopalians. By traditional, I mean traditional in language, literature, and intellectual appreciation. These traditionalists, and I count myself one in many ways, have been alienated from the Church and pushed out by those most interested in making TEC a cutting edge culturally relevant progressive expression of religion, i.e. “The Book of Daniel.” In case you have forgotten, this was a short and failed TV series that portrayed what many of our leaders claimed was the substance of a progressive religion. It is plain that many of our current leaders have no need or appreciation for the kind of people drawn to traditional congregations and those writing to Russ about how touched they were by their traditional Prayer Book approach to liturgy and sacrament.

Sadly, these are the people most missing from TEC today. I miss them and I often, like them, find myself alienated from our current preoccupations and the cultural contempt that I find for all traditional Anglican expressions of the faith. Don’t believe me? Listen in to discussions on the need for more expansive and experimental liturgies. I would have once said Prayer Books, but these discussions have no interest in the very impulse that created the Prayer Book tradition part of which was the desire to lift in prayer and worship the best our language and culture have to offer. Now we seem preoccupied with offering the commonplace banalities of our culture that are constantly changing. I must ask, have we become the Saturday Night Live version of denominations?

Never mind the objection that I continue to offer to our current leaders about how poorly we are at reaching new members even from all those diverse groups that we think will make us a “beloved community.” Simply and honestly ask what this shows us about our past 20 years. We have not been sustaining or encouraging communities where people who might be deeply touched by such traditional liturgies will ever connect. Why is this important? Because since the mid-point of the 20^th century, these were the very people who made up this “Community of the Beloved One” the significant leading denomination that we once were.  

If the Episcopal church continues its numerical decline, which by the way is accelerating, by the year 2040 The Episcopal church in the United States will cease to exist. It is sobering amidst all this to recognize that St. Martin’s, All Souls, and Incarnation to name only three will still be thriving especially given their generational diversity.  Perhaps what we really see is that these congregations have not lost their DNA of classical Anglicanism and its strengths while the rest of us have sold that heritage for a bowl of culturally relevant porridge.

Why do we continue to decline? Perhaps it is because we have abandoned the very people who would be drawn to such a spiritual Prayer Book tradition while we continue to make our community a more relevant place to people who we have little chance of ever attracting. Our current and ongoing decline makes this failure abundantly clear. 

Ten Signs of Hope for the Episcopal Church

Those of you who read my blogs know that I am often critical of the direction of TEC and outspoken about our continued decline. I have been hearing some good news and I thought that I would start the year off with signs we may be stopping the decline. 

1.     Ministries aimed at strengthening congregational life and vitality such as The Pivot Program, The Preaching Congregation, combined with new Diocesan initiatives.  These are addressing our continual decline with creativity and support.

2.    The Resurgence of Nashotah House Seminary: As a Prayer Book Catholic, I see the resurgence of this seminary as a very helpful sign that TEC could be moving back towards its identity as part of the Anglican Communion.

3.    The intentional new congregation plants of the Diocese of Texas. This includes both non-traditional communities and the planting of new congregations which includes a mission out of my home parish of Grace, Georgetown Texas located in one of the fastest growing counties in America. 

4.    The ability of the ACNA and TEC in South Carolina to negotiate an issue of disputed property. After millions of dollars in legal fees, two bishops found a Christian resolve. We can pray that this kind of behavior spreads among our leadership.

5.    The creative reunion of the Diocese of North Texas with the Diocese of Texas. This was a creative solution and an example for the future. Pair a struggling diocese with one that has enough resources to make a difference. Especially in light of # 3 above.

6.    The Iona School for Leadership: This expanding school for training clergy and lay leaders in a non-residential degree program is helping provide leadership to struggling congregations.

7.  Mockingbird, a ministry that provides great teaching and resources for younger clergy.

8. The “Invite, Welcome, Connect” website and resources: this continues to be an excellent ministry that continues to expand their ideas and resources.

9.    The Diocese of Pennsylvania is doing restarts and planting in previously closed congregations. Research on congregational revitalization that confirms my own experience shows that restarting a congregation is often more effective than trying to revitalize a declining and struggling small congregation.

10. The Living Church Podcasts (as well as the ongoing “The Living Church” magazine and The Covenant website. For those who think that theology is important, this remains a solid Anglican resource.

I am not saying that it will be easy to reverse our decline, but these items add to our ability to stabilize our community. Right now, COVID has added to our downward trend as seen in the most recent parochial reports. But with the help of the above and the energy many new leaders including new Bishops are bringing to our community to a healthier place. Stabilizing will probably take 3 to 5 years.

Feel free to hit the comment button and add any other positive signs that you have seen in TEC.