Yesterday I was interviewed by Mark Kelly. Mark is writing an article for OnMission magazine about churches planting churches and was given my name by Randy Chestnut, Executive Director of Cleveland Hope.

As I was sharing with Mark, I made a couple of comments that I have had time to think about and weigh against my experiences as a church launcer in the Cleveland area. I have come to realize through first hand experience that the majority of mega-churches in our denomination (SBC) don’t get it when it comes to church planting. It starts at at the top with the Senior Pastor and the Missions Pastors of these churches. I have contact about 75 mega churches to consider partnering with Bridge Church at Perry, a high impact, core church plant of the North American Mission Board. In my conversations with the leaders of these churches I heard the comment several times, “Our church is not ready to plant a church or sponsor a church plant just yet.”

As I reflect on that comment it makes me both sad and angry. Sad, because these leaders are so busy about doing the business fo the church that they think they have to have everything perfect on their end to help launch a church that will reach people for Christ. Many of these churches want to send you a mission team so they can say they are a on mission church. They just don’t get it. Mission Pastors have to be about the business of providing opportunities for their people to go, whether it is in their town, state, America, or around the globe. Church planting for some of these churches is foreign and messy and they don’t want to get their hands dirty.
I am angry because they see church plants as a place they can send their people to to help the poor church planter who doesn’t know what he is doing. I am angry becasue at times they can patronize church planting.

Partnerships have been construed wrongly in the world of church planting. I know I am about to ruffle some feathers, so here goes. True partnerships are not formed until,
(1) The Senior Pastor of the partnering church visits the church plant field/church planter,
(2) The partnering church makes a monthly financial commitment to the church plant,
(3) The partnering church engages the entire church in prayer for the church plant, and
(4) The partnering church makes a commitment to help the church plant with people resources.

This stuff where you have churches who want to send up mission teams and say they are partnering with you is not a partnership. I believe that you can apply Jesus’ words from Matthew 6 to church planting partnerships. “Where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.” If a church is going to be a sold out church planting church, it will allocate prayer, people, finances, and any resource it has to make church planting successful. Just like you can look at a person’s checkbook to see where their heart is, you can look at a church’s budget to see where the heart of that church is.

Prayer is important to church planters, trust me I know. I understand that is all some churches are able to do – Praise God! I understand that some churches can send a team to help during the summer – Praise God! I want you to understand that my comments refer to some mega-churches, which many are focused on building an empire, not building the kingdom.

Bridge Church is situated in the least evangelized county in the state of Ohio. We are not in a metropolitan area that is vibrant like Vancouver, Baltimore, San Diego, or New York. There is a ddeep need to start more churches in our area that will encounter and engage the cultures. I have found that mega-churches want to go to the more cosmopolitan cities mentioned above instead of coming to the Cleveland area. I have several friends here in the Cleveland area who are planting churches that could use church partners to helpl them accomplish their mission. If you read this post, please pray for the new church plants here in north east Ohio as we work to share Jesus with our Jerusalem.