It has always been my counsel to those seeking to enter the ministry that they should go the boot camp route. They shouldn’t start as the youth guy, moving up to the associate guy and then take a shot as Pastor of 1st Pres. of Catfish, Mississippi. Instead they should cut to the chase and join the special forces- be a church planter. Their lips usually begin to sweat and quiver. They fear I’ve asked too much. Then I explain that this choice is the better one not because the challenges build muscle mass, but because it’s the easier route. Those who serve in existing churches must run the deadly gauntlet of How Things Have Always Been Done. They must maneuver their way around the suspicious elder with the deep pockets. And they can be certain that the Queen Bee gossip will befriend him only long enough to get gossip about him to pass along. He will forever be compared to dear Pastor Before You, despite the fact that they rode him out of town on a rail. All the church planter has to worry about is gathering enough people and money to survive. His only challenge is being chief cook and bottle washer for the malcontents who hated the church they came from. For the same reasons they will soon hate his church. Comparatively speaking, it’s small potatoes, if only because this calling comes with fewer sheep.
On the other hand, when you plant a church, there are advantages. There is no debate over praise choruses, Psalms only or hymns. You make that decision. You never have to lead your congregation “toward” weekly communion. You may have to fill the cups all by yourself, but you get to make the decision. You won’t have to close down the nursery or the youth department. All you have to do is never open either. In short, the church planter is given the unique opportunity to put his stamp on the church he is seeking to grow. He makes decisions that will set the direction of the church for years to come.
Which may be the greatest danger in following this route. I have heard it said that the late James Boice, who served for decades as the pastor of the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, spent his entire time their under the shadow of the former occupant of the pulpit. Dr. Boice’s own mother referred to 10th Presbyterian as “Dr. Barnhouse’s church.” All the freedom given to a church planter is the freedom to place one’s mark on a particular church, to shape it, and give it direction. And so the serpent sidles up and offers the most shocking of idols, the church itself. The danger is that pastors (and it can even happen to those who inherit churches rather than plant them) build up local churches not as houses of worship of the living God, but as monuments to themselves.
The Holy Spirit, while equipped with far greater power than the intrepid church planter, is nevertheless far less visible. The Word that is to be preached rests under the lip of the pulpit, but the words of the preacher flow forth from the pulpit. Your church may rest upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, but you’re the steeple, the clanging bell that lets the watching world know that you are there. That’s the temptation, and as absurd as it seems, it is a real one. It afflicted Nadab and Abihu who tried to upstage God with their own light show. It afflicted the children of Israel who found their identity not in the Lord, but in the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. Why should we be surprised if we succumb to the same temptation? Virtually every man, whatever his calling, hopes to make a name for himself. The pastor is not immune from this.
So how do we fight this battle? As always we tear down false idols best by bowing before the living God. The greater evil than the worship of the false is the failure to worship the true. It is a challenge to seek to build a monument to ones self when one is acutely aware of his own sin. Remember that the building, the institution exists because we are all in need of a savior, so that His name might be exalted. Remember as you gather, whichever side of the pulpit, that you gather in His name, and for His glory. Remember that every church survives the death of its founder. More important still remember that every church is only a church as long as it remembers the death of its Founder.
It is good and right and proper that we should honor the very gifts that God has given us. My own Father was a great and godly man who, by the grace of God, had tremendous impact on the church. While his gifts, his energy, his wisdom were all gifts from our Father above, we thank our Father above by noting those gifts. And God has blessed us with countless heroes of the faith, men we ought to imitate, even as they imitate Christ. What we ought not to do, on the other hand, is seek such honors for ourselves. What we ought not to do is to draw attention to ourselves, or the work of our hands. Those who labor faithfully build monuments to Christ. Those who labor for themselves labor in vain, for they but build white washed tombs that will hold their own dead bones.