Thoughts from a Church Planting Roundtable Discussion:

What have been your greatest struggles?

• The Temptation to Quit - planting a church is harder than anyone could ever imagine.
• The Assimilation of Other Ethnicities into a New Culture - one important role of the pastor of a church from another ethnic background is helping his people function in commerce and education in their new culture.
• Obtaining Facilities that Communicate Stability in Our Culture - it is hard to communicate stability in our society while meeting in a house or even a store front yet land and buildings are so expensive.  It is especially difficult for a new church with little money in areas where real estate is so incredibly expensive.
• Establishing Leaders - biblical leaders do not appear immediately but must be built and this takes time.  

How can we help each other in these struggles?

• Encouragement - we must be relational with other pastors/church planters.  Everybody needs a Barnabas.  We need each other, you cannot do it alone.  This relationship must include random phone calls just to check in on one another.  Personal visits are a must and email alone is not sufficient.  We must be in mutually edifying friendships with other pastors/planters with whom we may share our struggles and celebrate our successes.     
• Assimilation - the local pastor can utilize relationships through the local association for the sake of networking to help church members connect with others.  We have people in the churches who can assist our brothers and sisters in Christ to get jobs, transportation, education and anything else they need.  The resources they need are in the relationships to be built.  
• Working Ahead - one way to help with facilities is to do what may be called “over-seeding” by working with churches that have been experiencing decline.  It is prudent to be a blessing to these churches by allowing them the privilege of continuing the kingdom work through a newer congregation.  It simultaneously blesses the new church by helping provide facilities for their outreach and meetings.  The discussion must begin with caution in order to not offend the declining congregation.  One effective way of beginning this relationship has been for a pastor to simply call the pastors in the area to see if a joint effort may be possible.  This type of over-seeding will often require crossing denominational barriers and each congregation must decide the details of their cooperation.  It is best to approach this relationship with a spirit of serving the congregation.  Whatever could be done to help the people.  Possibly providing some maintenance or visitation and maybe gathering for some joint worship services.  It will help for the church to truly be a part of the new missions effort.  The purchasing of property is such a challenge that we should also be considering the   possibilities of buying land in projected growth areas.  The land would now be affordable and could be found by consulting future development maps in many parts of the DFW metroplex.  When the population growth comes to these areas we would already have property for new churches which would be of great assistance.
• Leaders - we all know the disappointment of investing in another only to see them fall away or be moved elsewhere.  Sometimes those who are closest to us end up hurting us the worst.  We should love and build them up anyway.  Building leaders takes time and hard work.  Everyone falls, including me.  Just as Jesus picks me up and helps me keep going, so I can also do with others.  It is important to not be in a hurry to place people in positions of influence.  We must follow the exhortation of Paul to Timothy, “do not lay hands on anyone hastily.” (1 Timothy 5:22)  It must always be the intentional priority of the church planting pastor to train leaders.  “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”  (2 Timothy 2:2)