When Fear Gets in the Way: A Reflection on Church Planting

Church planting requires great faith and sacrifice. The truth is that many are not yet ready or willing to take the steps required to launch into church planting. God recently taught me how much fear I am prone to have toward church planting and how that fear and reservation stood in the way.

Many pastors fear church planting. People leave. Finances are stretched. Responsibilities have to be redistributed. Relationships change. The sending church has to trust new leaders, release some of its best people, and accept that the future may not unfold exactly as planned.

In a recent Aquila Institute conversation on church planting, I spoke to Pastor Carsten Lotz of International Christian Fellowship (ICF) in Frankfurt. Carsten spoke candidly about his experience as a parent church pastor. ICF had the privilege of planting River of Life in the centre of Frankfurt, and the church plant has gone on to become an established congregation reaching a different population in the city.

Looking back on that experience, Carsten identified something that surprised him. One of the biggest obstacles to planting was himself.

"I count myself as one of the biggest obstacles just because of my own natural fears."

That kind of honesty is valuable because it exposes something that can easily remain hidden behind apparently reasonable questions.

Is this the right time?

Do we have enough people?

Can we afford it?

What if it doesn't work?

What if we lose our best people?

What if the church plant gets all the people I really need here?

These are not necessarily bad questions. A parent church pastor has genuine responsibilities to the congregation entrusted to him. Wisdom requires planning, prayer, financial stewardship and careful leadership.

But legitimate responsibility can sometimes become a cover for fear.

Carsten's story is common. We speak to lots of pastors who worry about church planting for myriad reasons. But my fear was different. Time.

I know that pastoring takes time. I know that my work at Aquila Initiative takes time. How could I possibly add a church plant on top of that?

Several years ago, when we sent our church planters to Spain, that was easy. It was their time on the altar before God. It was their calling and their sacrifice. But what about planting here in our own city?

Matthias and Mira are the ones who went to Spain, but before that they were LifeGroup leaders here in Bonn. I discipled Matthias and two other Germans through the Aquila One-Year Apprenticeship program, hoping that the Lord would open doors for a church plant. But that door never opened. Possibly, that's because of my fear of what that would cost me.

So, we did the safe thing and kept waiting and praying.

Time passed. First one of the Germans I discipled left, and then Matthias and Mira answered a call to go to Spain.

That third one (Adrian) stayed in Bonn, and eventually God sent us a new church leader (Jonathan) from Switzerland. All in God's timing.

I don't know what would have happened if we had been more aggressive with planting a church led by the original three. Honestly, I believe it wasn't the right time or the right people.

But here's something I was reminded of in a tangible way: God uses our obedience AND our disobedience for His glory and our good. Moses' murder of the Egyptian led him to the wilderness where he met with God.

And ultimately, I was also reminded of another foundational thing. Church planting is not about me. I can encourage people toward it, I can disciple people toward it, but it has to be something that God calls the church planter to and that he feels as a burning inside him to do.

I was confessing to our lead church planter here in Bonn the fears I often felt and how they potentially slowed down the launching of Internationale Gemeinde Bonn. I'm so thankful for his wise answer. He reminded me that I'm not the church planter. I have a call to pastor IBC Bonn and a responsibility to pastor the sheep entrusted to my care. I have a responsibility to mentor and advise the church planting team, but it is their call to plant IGB.

This was such a good reminder.

I needed to remember that I'm the pastor of the planting church, not the church planter. God will move and work. In His good timing, the core team of IGB knew that it was time to step out in faith.

Now, returning to where we first began: perhaps the most helpful word from Carsten is also the simplest. To the parent church pastor, he said: "Get over your fears, step out into the water, see what God will do."

That does not mean ignoring wisdom or the need for patience and prayer. It means recognising that fear is a poor master. There may be legitimate reasons not to plant at a particular moment. Churches need to assess their leaders and discern their current context.

Ultimately, church planting is about trusting Christ to build His church.

We cannot see the whole story when a church plant begins. But there is great loss when fear keeps us from discovering what God might do.

In our case, the Lord has been gracious. The leaders of our German church plant in Bonn have been used greatly by God and for the time being have only needed my encouragement, prayer, and continued mentoring support. Another elder from IBC Bonn has stepped up as the representative elder on the IGB elder board. In other words, as is often the case, my fears were proven to be unfounded.

God is gracious and He is building His church. It is not on my shoulders, and He is not depending on me.