A Fresh Perspective On Starting a Church

By Raul Rivera

It was Sunday afternoon and the service had long since come to a close.  Sixty people came to the service that morning.  For pastor Tom, it should have been a moment to celebrate.  However, there he was sitting at the foot of the altar with tears streaming down his face.  He could not shake the feeling.  He felt lonely and afraid.  Somehow the burden of leadership was more than what he had dreamt.  He thought that being the pastor of a new and growing church would make him feel validated, loved, covered and celebrated.  However, the exact opposite was true.  What could he have done differently to help alleviate the pain?

Remember your first service?

There is nothing more exciting than the events leading up to your first service as a newly started church.  All the months of planning finally reach their climax in the days just before the big service.  I have spoken to hundreds of pastors in the days before their first service and the one thing they all say is that they are "nervously excited."  However, what few people ever mention is the day after . . . or better yet, the moment after.  When that first service has come to a close and all the months of meetings and planning have culminated into that first service...what then?  If you are like most pastors, you were probably disappointed, maybe depressed.  More was expected to come from that service but the numbers that attended took the wind right out of your sails and now you wonder if you did the right thing.  The truth is, most pastors are never truly ready for the emotions that follow their first service.   Remember, the first service is only one event in hundreds and hopefully thousands of others.  There will be many more Sunday services.

Now that you have been pastoring have the feelings changed?

Now that we talked about the first service, let's look a little deeper into the heart of a pastor who has been through the first service and has begun to settle into pastoring.  Let's take a look at the moments right after Sunday service.  The last person has left and it is just him and his wife.  Whether it is in their own home or in a rented facility, when the last member says goodbye, the pastoral couple is left to ponder unspoken thoughts of loneliness.  That is often the struggle of pastors leading younger and smaller churches.   Now that everyone is gone, who is going to clean?  Who is going to count?  And finally, the last thought . . . does anyone care?

What to do to alleviate the pain

Pastors from all walks of life have shared with me their moments before and after services.  What I have discovered is that most pastors, regardless of the size of their churches, have similar feelings and experiences.  I call it "the way of leadership."  Every leader has to learn how to walk alone with God and let his/her fellowship be enough.  Many who leave the ministry do so because they never learned that lesson.  So, if every pastor has though go through the way of leadership is there anything that can be done to prepare for it?  The answer is, "Yes".  However, it is only something that will help to alleviate the pain of learning the "way of leadership", and not a shortcut to success.

Three things to do before your first service

Start legal process:  A common mistake that many church planters make is holding their first service before they start the legal process of establishing the church. Once you are in the thick of pastoring, it becomes much harder mentally to give this area attention.  There are very important reasons why these minimum set of steps should be done before the first service.  First of all, there is something spiritual that takes place when you do so.  Because the church has to conduct business transactions, following the Romans 13 requirements make a declaration that you are in it for the long haul.  I hear many pastors say when they get their incorporations, "It's official now . . . we are at the point of no return."   Secondly, it protects the church.  I recently spoke to a house church leader who was overseeing a growing network of house churches.  Everything started great.  Growth was happening and it seemed that every week some were being added to their number.  However, they had not started any of the legal process other than securing their tax ID number.  Then it was discovered that one of the children was sexually molested by a church volunteer.  While the volunteer may be criminally prosecuted, who is responsible for the civil damages?  Because they were not incorporated, the responsible people will likely be the pastors and the people in whose house it happened.  Pastors, please do not ignore the legal process.  This is just one reason why you need to push through this process.  Below is a quick list of the first steps you should take to get off to a good start.

• Get the church Incorporated
• Get a Tax ID
• Create ecclesiastical constitution and bylaws
• Teach the board secretary how to properly take minutes at meetings
• Adopt the conflict of interest policy, reimbursement policy, compensation policy, and international activities and anti-terrorism policy
• Establish an IRS proof ordination program through your church
• Properly set up a tithe and offerings tracking system
• Obtain 501(c)(3) status
• Obtain sales tax exemption
• Properly designate a housing allowance
• Obtain the minister's self employment tax exemption

Start a counting team and a cleaning crew:  It is obvious that someone has to clean and someone has to count the money from the tithes and offerings, but the question is, "Who?"  It may sound silly, but many churches start without ever considering this significant part of the process. If you take the time to establish this before you ever hold your first service, it will ease effects of the post service emotional roller coaster.  It will also help alleviate the burden of pastoring in the long term if you make sure that the cleaning and counting crews make commitments for at least 6 months.  At our conferences, we teach a step-by-step method on how to establish a tithe and offering counting policy and rotation team.

Set up a follow up team: Getting people to make commitments before you hold your first service is much easier than after the first service.  The weeks leading up to the first service are the best moments to cast vision and share how important it will be to follow up on any new visitors.  Most of the people that plan to be a part of that first service have grand feelings about the start of a new church and as a leader you need to leverage that and give them a place to get plugged into serving.  Below are two tips that will help in building a follow up team.

• Make sure they are committed
• Make sure they have a follow up strategy that features a "Meet the Pastors" fellowship after every service