Opposition to Church Planting

As most church planters know, the most direct discouragement and opposition to starting a church comes from the pastors in the community of the new church. This is a bewildering experience because the planter mistakenly assumes that pastors would be excited about the new works endeavoring to reach more people. But this is rarely the case. It is important for us to ask why this happens, because it is easy for planters to become like the pastors that opposed us when we started. We often become what we hate. And we need to be able to show mercy to those pastors so that we don't see them as our enemies.

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Many pastors of established churches think church planting is not necessary, because their church is already there trying to reach the community. They simply don't see that the scale of the unchurched in their city is beyond what any one church can do. They see the addition of a new church as a subtraction from their influence. But I believe something deeper is going on in the life of the pastor, besides just being ignorant.

Ego Threat

Many pastors, myself included, are deeply insecure about the potential success of the new church start. Pastors are experts in making excuses about why their church is the way it is. And if the new church start comes in and reaches people that the established church is not reaching, the pastor's excuses are then shattered, exposing the problem not to be the community, but rather, the way the established church is led. We think, "if this new church comes in and is successful, and we are not successful, what does this prove about me?" And so the pastor would rather oppose than be exposed. But pastors, by the grace of God, need to be able to learn from new churches, and vice versa, so that the unbelievers in the community would be meaningfully engaged. We have to put the gospel ahead of our egos—and that's not easy.