This week I spent extended time with my dear friend Dan, who leads our church about a six-hour drive from me. We have sent church plants a lot over the last two years, including Dan. Among the leaders (missionaries) at our McMaster campus, we have sent about 40% of them to support or start churches in new cities.
The cost of sending almost half of our key leaders has been high. Of the dozens of leaders we sent, each person carried a substantial ministry load and was deeply connected relationally.
For example, a few years ago we sent the director of our weekly soup kitchen, which feeds between 50 and sometimes even 100 people a week; his name is Tim. Then we sent the replacement leader, Yousaf. Then we sent the three instrumental team members, Brianna, Liz, and Morgan. Then we sent the latest replacement leader, Neo.
Maybe that sounds romantic, but it’s been quite painful. When I spent time with that team in the spring and summer, it was clear they needed focused attention to rebuild. Consequently, a new leader was appointed, who happens to be a new-ish Christian, and we are rebuilding.
It’s not an accident that the greatest movement of sending in the Scriptures was on the heels of persecution in Acts 8. Sending is costly and painful to us, and sometimes we really don’t want to do it.
It’s painful to send those relationships. We miss our friends.
It’s painful organizationally because those leaders held things together.
Churches that send aren’t in denial about these pains. In fact, we may be even more keenly aware of the costs. However, we send regardless.
Why Do We Send and Plant Churches?
Sending, Like Pruning, Stimulates Growth
I recently moved houses, and our new house has many trees. I’ve been learning that when a branch is pruned, especially a healthy branch, it stimulates more growth.
Sometimes the pruning metaphor is that you only prune dead branches. But that’s not the case. Pruning helps the church grow. By sending great leaders, we intentionally create space and capacity for new leaders to rise up.
Pruning is painful and is like a wound on the tree. But it causes the tree to allocate increased energy to new growth.
Healthy sending is the same. Although it’s painful, when properly cultivated, it causes the church to rally and new leaders to step up.
I should add: new leaders don’t automatically step up. Often the sending is followed by a period of organizational chaos. And the pain of that chaos can be catalytic in getting new leadership to step up.
Sending Protects the Mission
It’s easy for a church to end up a lot like a tree that has never been pruned: lots of weird, unhealthy, and unproductive branches. Much of church life can be spent on petty issues, irrelevant theological discussions, or idle debates. Moreover, even if a church is growing, it will eventually topple under the weight of its own growth if not carefully tended to.
One of the best ways to keep the mission of the church at the centre is to continually send new people out so that the existential reason for the church’s being in the first place is always front and centre.
This way, we don’t just build ministry for ministry’s sake, but continually raise and send new communities of disciples to reach those who have never heard the Gospel.
Sending Keeps Ministry Alive
By sending our leaders, we have no choice but to give opportunities to younger, fresher, and often untested ideas.
These leaders bring fresh concepts to church life. If older leaders don’t hand over ministry responsibility to young leaders, inevitably the ministry will die a slow, sad death. The only way to preserve ministry for generations to come is for leaders to expand the ministry to new places while handing responsibility to younger leaders.
Of course, these leaders are often untested, inexperienced, and perhaps naive. But they are also creative, eager, earnest, and willing. By sending our best leaders, new leaders inevitably have to step up into the holes they leave, and often those holes are big!
We Will Never Feel Ready
In short, if we wait until we’re “ready” to send, we will never send. It’s just too painful organizationally and relationally. My encouragement is for every church, house church, or mega-church to have in its DNA from the very beginning a desire to send its best leaders out!