SEVEN SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL MISSION PLANT!

Dennis R. Di Mauro

Let’s face it - most pastors don’t want to start a mission church.

There are a number of reasons for this. Pastors feel that church plants are too expensive, too risky, too stressful for their families, or they ask for too much commitment from their members. They usually feel that taking on an existing church is much easier, more satisfying, and more likely to succeed.

So, it might surprise you to learn that, according to a North American Mission Board study, 68% of mission plants are still going after 4 years of ministry.1 That’s right my friends – if you start a mission church, it has over a two-thirds chance of succeeding!

And remember, even if you answer a call to an existing church, it still has a good chance of failing. A recent article explains that an existing Lutheran church has up to an 8% chance of failing over four years.2 So, I guess ministry is tough these days any way you slice it.

And because ministry is tough no matter if you lead a mission or an existing church, it might be worthwhile considering church planting. Because I believe the benefits of church planting far outweigh the disadvantages. And I speak from experience! I lead a group of disciples who started a church plant fourteen years ago, and that mission church is bigger and more effective today than ever before.

Advantages of Church Planting

So, let’s take a look at a few advantages that church planting offers over existing church ministry.

1) It’s Brand New - Church planters are never told that “this is the way we’ve always done it” because the “always done it” never happened! This offers mission leaders a unique opportunity to design the ministry they feel is most effective at the very start.

2) It’s the Best Training Possible for a New Pastor – Church planting provides a unique opportunity for a new pastor to learn everything about what it means to do ministry – from administration, to outreach, to visiting. You’ll learn everything because you are usually the only person on staff!

3) It’s Professionally Satisfying – There’s really nothing like starting something new and watching it grow and succeed.

4) It Actually Enlarges the Kingdom - Church planting builds a culture of evangelism which seeks to convert unbelievers to the faith, and then it energizes those new members with countless opportunities for ministry.

I lead a group of disciples who started a church plant fourteen years ago, and that mission church is bigger and more effective today than ever before.

How to Start a Successful Church Plant

From our experience in starting Trinity Lutheran Church in Warrenton, VA, we have found that there are seven steps to creating a viable church plant. Obviously, there are some table stakes in this process. It helps to be in a growing area, and in an area with limited Lutheran options. For instance, if you live in a shrinking rural town of ten thousand people and four existing Lutheran churches, it might be difficult, although probably not impossible, to build a viable and self-sustaining congregation. The church plant must also be run by dedicated disciples immersed in prayer and the reading of the Word. They must be willing to dedicate significant time to furthering the growth of the congregation. These disciples will also need to be able to accept disappointment once in a while - and then trudge on. And while the growth of any church will be the direct result of Holy Spirit’s power, don’t kid yourself, you will have to work –and you’ll have to work really hard.

However, discipleship, demographic studies, and Christian action aren’t really the key points I want to share with you in this article. No doubt you can find thoughtful essays on these subjects elsewhere. My goal here is to be quite practical and lay out for you seven important steps to follow that will maximize your chances for church plant success. If I were to sum all those points ahead of time, the overarching goal is to create a sense of legitimacy in the visitor’s mind that God is building a viable church that will be there in the future to fulfill his/her spiritual needs. So here are my suggestions:

Step One: Identify a Core Group and Start Worship Immediately

This is a key step in the original planning of any church start. The question is – do you have the people needed to even get this thing off the ground?

Trinity started with just sixteen attendees in one of our members’ living room. That’s a little small for a core group, but it was good enough. So, as a rule of thumb I would suggest that you start with a group of fifteen, at least, with 50% of those being disciples willing to invest significant time in its formation. Immediately identify musicians, assisting ministers, ushers, and others willing to start worship as soon as possible. Get each member of the core group involved somehow.

We started in a local public gymnasium in a county park. I know that some evangelical sources tell you to start with a home Bible study3 and then move into worship, but I don’t believe that this works in the Lutheran space. I believe that it is uber important to get a traditional Lutheran service (LBW, LSB, etc.) started as soon as possible so as to not lose the momentum and excitement of starting something new. I also think that Lutherans are a sacramental people to the core - if the sacraments aren’t available immediately, they will lose confidence in the effort and look elsewhere. Even if a pastor is unavailable, you might be able to get a local pastor to bless the sacraments and have a deacon or lay leader lead the service in the beginning. But DO NOT start without a minimal fifteen-person core group, otherwise you will be wasting your time.

As a rule of thumb I would suggest that you start with a group of fifteen, at least, with 50% of those being disciples willing to invest significant time in its formation.

Step Two: Create a Website and a Bank Account

I believe it was Pastor Tony Ede who told me that 60% of NALC congregations do not have a web presence. This is a very sad state of affairs because it means that young people have no way of finding these congregations - they live on their phones! So, a website is a bare minimum. My suggestion is that if you don’t want to create a website, don’t start a mission church –period. Our website is www.trinitylutheranva.org and it resides on Faith Connector,4 which provides setup, hosting, support, and biannual updates, and costs about $500 a year, but obviously other options are available. Your church also needs to get itself onto Google and Yahoo maps so people can find you on GPS.

You should also set up a church page on Facebook and keep it updated. Other options are also available, such as X and Instagram, but we’ve haven’t gotten much traction from either.

Another first step is getting a bank account and a treasurer, and that means registering an EIN number with the IRS as soon as possible (a requirement for the bank account). You can’t start collecting tithes until you have that bank account, and you need to start building a nest egg from day one.

Step Three: Start Two Services

One nearly foolproof way to grow a church is to start an additional service.

One nearly foolproof way to grow a church is to start an additional service. Your congregation will instinctively oppose this move because they will think it will poach people from one service to another or will make the church less unified. Neither of these outcomes will likely happen. A second service almost always creates significant growth in the first year – usually around 20-25% growth. I know it doesn’t make sense, but there must be a science to this because it always seems to work out that way. If you want to grow, add a service. If you want to grow more, add another service. More opportunities for worship mean more attendance. Don’t believe me? Show me a megachurch with one service.

I would also put all those services on Sunday morning. If you have one service, start it at 10am – this is the best time favored by most churches;5 if you have two services, maybe 9am and 11am; three services - 8am, 9:30am and 11am. These aren’t hard and fast rules - fit the times to your congregation’s needs. I would also include traditional and contemporary/praise options. Put Sunday School, First Communion, Confirmation and the Coffee Hour in between the two services, if you have two. If you don’t have any kids that doesn’t mean you can just skip religious education. Every church plant (and every church in need of renewal) should have Sunday School, First Communion, and Confirmation prepared before it has any students. Otherwise, when families come in, it will be their first and last Sunday at your church! When young parents ask “is there a Sunday School” you have to be able to say “yes” - every time. This will make the first two kids who enter your church the very first Sunday school students because you had a Sunday School teacher and a prepared curriculum waiting for them.

As to the lack of unity created by a number of services, this phenomenon can be mitigated by a social hour, congregational events, or by small groups.

Step Four: Obtain a Worship Space

Nothing creates a sense of legitimacy in a visitor’s mind like a dedicated worship space that can be used 24/7. This is especially important in the Lutheran space, allowing for midweek services, meetings, and activities. It should be located on a major highway with attractive signage and be as modern and spacious as possible. But just finding any 24/7 space is crucial, no matter what it looks like. At Trinity, we rent an old church building built in 1957 and have completed numerous leasehold improvements using congregational labor and grants. It’s not perfect, but it did convince the community that we’re not going anywhere, and I think that is half the battle.

Step Five: Call a Full-Time Pastor

Finding a pastor is hard. Finding a good pastor is even harder. And then you have to pay the pastor! Obviously, this is a challenge for many church plants. In our case, I worked part-time for two years as a vicar without pay to get the church off the ground. Sounds crazy? Well, it might be. But the sad truth is that someone has to pay for all this, and that means significant sacrifice by the congregation and the pastor. The temptation will arise to just hire a part-time pastor, or to have lay leaders run the church with a nearby pastor available to consecrate the sacraments. But I believe that both of these so-called “cheaper solutions” will drain the church of funds much faster that the allegedly more expensive solution of hiring a pastor and then paying that pastor a full-time package. There’s an old saying, “You gotta spend money to make money,” and that saying works in the church as well.

There’s an old saying, “You gotta spend money to make money,” and that saying works in the church as well.

There is simply no long-term substitute for a trained preacher who can serve as a consistent leader/administrator for the congregation. A fulltime pastor allows a church to lead weddings, funerals, counseling, outreach into the community, home visits, and so much more. And I hate to beat the legitimacy drum once more, but it is so important. Because until you have a full-time pastor, no one will consider you a REAL church and few seekers will join your church.

Step Six: Outreach

For some reason, we Lutherans still think that Sven wakes up on Sunday morning and thinks “I should go to Lutheran church today.” We seem to have missed the last fifty years of life in America! Hello? Sven doesn’t think like that anymore. And neither does Hans. It’s just not on their radar screens. But you know what? They might think a little more like that if we invited them to church. The sad truth is that we can’t expect people to come to church…no we need to invite them to come to church! In fact, asking people to come to church is estimated to generate more than 80% of church growth.6

Now how do we do that? How do we reach others for Christ? Well, the first thing we need to do is to be active members of the community. We need to make friends and build relationships. I often ask my church members how many friends they have….two, five, ten? But what we don’t understand is that disciples have to have hundreds of friends! The plain truth is that church is not a club. We all need to get out from behind our four walls to make it work. Yes, it’s a little scary out there, but it’s also rewarding beyond belief.

One of the things I have found to be effective in outreach is serving as a hospital chaplain. It allows me to meet perhaps as many as ten new people every week…to pray for them, learn about their health and their lives, and then invite them to church. But the ways we can serve people and make connections are literally infinite. Examples include participating in street fairs; holding car washes; starting a pub theology group at a local bar; offering “Free Prayer” at Panera or another public place; serving at a nursing home, senior center, or food bank; or even knocking on doors. I also like asking parents if their children have been baptized or are interested in confirmation. This may be weighing on their hearts, and the church can play a vital role in introducing their children to Jesus.

Step Seven: Build Disciples

But we know that most of the people in our churches do not have any desire to do these things. Why? Well, it’s because they weren’t taught to do any of these things. Most grew up in a time when the birth rate was high, teens played softball with the Luther or Walther leagues, and asking people to come to church was deemed impolite.

Most of our church members grew up in a time when the birth rate was high, teens played softball with the Luther or Walther leagues, and asking people to come to church was deemed impolite.

But those days are long gone. Today, we have to change the Lutheran culture back to what it was in the days of the apostles - the days when Christians were in the minority (just like today) and had a burning desire to share the redeeming gospel of Jesus.

That means a constant drumbeat of outreach: in our preaching, in our adult classes, and in the church culture in general. Preventing an “inward” focus means constantly encouraging members to invite friends to church, and getting everyone involved, in at least some way, in some sort of community outreach.

Things to Avoid

But it’s almost as important to review what not to do than what to do! I’ve seen more than one church plant fail due to some common mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen is delaying worship until after a constitution, articles of incorporation, or bylaws are established. In fact, I know of a congregation that no longer exists, that did only that in its first year! Members quickly lose patience with this kind of footdragging, and they drift away. As mentioned before, it’s best to start worship as soon as possible in a gym/school, etc. Get started now!

The second thing to avoid is conflict. Most mission churches are ruined not through a lack of zeal or outreach, no, most failed churches implode from the ravages of internal conflict. So avoiding conflict between members is paramount. Pastors and lay leaders must be proactive in resolving conflicts between members before they ignite into an all-out war.

A controlling and unkind leadership is also a parish killer. The sad fact is that many individuals with mental illness seek to lead congregations, either as pastors or as members of the church council. They will try to control every aspect of the church, and if they lose control, they will seek to burn it all down. I’ve seen this many times. The council needs to intervene when this occurs, and sadly, it probably will, at least once in the life of every congregation. It’s important to have clear policies in the church constitution for removing pastors, presidents or council members by a simple majority vote.

But above all, the best practice is to lead by consensus. I remember a promising church plant that changed worship locations three times over its short life, once with only 55% of the members in favor of the move. The resulting loss in attendance was crushing, and that mission church is long gone. Making sure that 80% or more of the congregation agrees with a major decision is the best way to move forward. If you can’t get 80%, don’t do anything.

Conclusion

I hope I have convinced at least some of you of the joys and feasibility of starting a new church. And it is my prayer that through these suggestions, you might avoid some of the pitfalls which have plagued other churches. Indeed, helping start Trinity Lutheran Church has been the most satisfying experience of my professional life. So, if God has put church planting on your heart, consider me a possible resource as you seek to serve Him by building a new community of faith!

(This paper is based on a presentation given at the NALC VA Mission District Conference on May 21, 2022).

Rev. Dr. Dennis Di Mauro, the editor of SIMUL, is Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church (originally a church plant) in Warrenton, VA, and he can be reached at dennisdimauro@yahoo.com

Endnotes:

1Ed Stetzer and Phillip Connor, “Church Plant Survivability and Health Study 2007,” North American Mission Board, February 2007, https://resources.pcamna.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/06/CPMainReport.pdf

2Greg Smith, “Are 10,000 Churches Closing Every Year?” So What Faith, April 9, 2019, https://sowhatfaith.com/2019/09/04/are-10000-churches-closing-every-year/

3“Start A Church — How Can a Bible Study Become a Church?” Never Thirsty, https://www.neverthirsty.org/bible-qa/qa-archives/question/can-bible-study-become-achurch/

4Faith Connector Websites, https://www.faithconnector.com/

5Tom Rainer, “What Is the Best Time for a Worship Service?” Church Answers, Episode #221, May 3, 2016, https://churchanswers.com/podcasts/rainer-on-leadership/what-is-the-besttime-for-a-worship-service-rainer-on-leadership-221/

6“Extending an Invitation: Simple Steps to Encourage Church Members to Invite Others,” ACS Technologies, Jan. 17, 2025, https://www.acstechnologies.com/church-growth/extending-aninvitation-simple-steps-to-encourage-church-members-to-invite-others/