By Brian Gingles

In a New Testament parable we are exhorted to count the cost of a tower before we begin to build it (Luke 14 : 2). At first this can sound like common sense rather than faith but – on reflection – it is, of course, divine wisdom.

The blueprint for the tower may be inspiring, others around you may be exhorting you to “Go for it!” but someone has to pay the price: and it is seldom the exhorters who do so. BFOC is a church-planting network, so its support mechanisms’ for pioneers must be rigorous and effective.

In this article I want to look briefly at a subject I broached with Yinka and Keith at Camp last year (2007). It is my burden and conviction that church-planting pioneers – who are prepared to pay the price to “build the tower” – should be supported all the way. I speak out of biblical conviction and from experience: a lot fewer church plants succeed if the key people and phases go unsupported. I have watched a large city church in Belfast; with abundant resources consistently fail to plant successful churches – to reproduce itself. I have also witnessed, first hand, a few ordinary people achieve the apparently impossible – with a lot of help from God and support at key times from His people.

How and when do you need help to plant a successful church? The first stage is when you first receive your call from God. At that point you need someone you can trust, preferably a Barnabas National Team member, to sit and pray with you (and your wife, if you are married) – talking through the calling and its implications. Then, you and your family must be free – without any pressure – to decide the if? when? where? and how? Only those who will pay the price can make the final decision. Thirdly, having begun to plant, much help is needed at the sowing stage: prayer, finance and a team of evangelists as a minimum. Fourthly, on-going mentoring is needed from someone who has done this before. This means that you need not suffer the pain of avoidable mistakes. Fifthly, very quickly, the church-planting pioneers will need personal support. Too many pioneers in the past have been left “out on a limb”. One of my key motivations for joining Barnabas was to support leaders, too many of whom I had seen needlessly become casualties over the years. Leadership can be lonely at the best of times but pioneering leadership can be destructively lonely. As the church-planter juggles the demands of family, church and job he and his family can suffer – without loving support and help. Sixthly, the church will need pastoral advice and teaching support – especially if these are not the giftings of the key pioneer.

In practical terms this means: an approachable National Team Leader, with time to pray, advise and care; a central financial “pot” that this leader can draw upon; a Church-Planting Evangelistic Team – which can move into that area for 1-3 months; an experienced church-planter to act as mentor; pastoral support for the key leaders of the church plant; a Church-Planting Pastoral and Teaching Team – who will support the church through its first year.

Between Stages 2-3 above – between the call and the sending – there needs to be a period of training. I have known Christians who could be parachuted into a strange town with a Bible and, if you went back in a year, you would find a thriving church. Such people are extremely rare. With God nothing is impossible but most of us need training and support! I remember, for example taking my first wedding, and my first funeral!

I am committed to support church-planting pioneers. Within BFOC this support now needs to be planned and every nation mobilised, so that each precious pioneer can succeed.