21 Ways to Plant Your Next Church

Written by Eric Turbedsky and Ricky Alcantar

“When is the right time to begin the process of planting our next church?”

That’s a common question our church planting group receives a lot from pastors. But the answer isn’t what you might think. The answer is not, “Once you’ve got a planter ready” or “After you have a certain number of people in an area.” 

The right time to begin the process of planting our next church is right now. 

In many ways, each church should always be in the process of planting its next church. Church planting grows out of a church’s commitment to mission; it is, in many ways, an overflow of a church’s commitment to mission. So the healthier the commitment to mission, the better this prepares a church to plant.  

Here are 21 ways to start the process of planting your next church. They’re stated here briefly and sometimes provocatively. The goal here is to take the idea of planting your next church from a theoretical wish to a practical reality you can prepare for. Not every one of them will apply to your specific church context and situation, but many of them will. 

1. Develop a compelling vision for local missions

Help your church see your own community as a mission field. (This will also help your people see other communities as mission fields in the future.) 

2. Adopt a second city

Find a partner church in another country and “adopt” it – get to know it and its context, support it practically, send help to it when possible, and repeat this over the long haul. Seeing the gospel at work in other contexts will spur us onward to mission in our own community as we see ourselves as part of what God is doing around the world. 

3. Set a church planting goal

Set a faith-filled goal for planting in a particular place, or a goal to raise up a planter, perhaps by a particular year. What is realistic yet faith-filled? Write it down. Pray over it regularly. 

4. Communicate your ambition with everyone

Don’t be shy about sharing a godly ambition for planting with leaders in your church and your congregation. Plans can change, but gospel ambition shouldn’t. It can be as simple as “We pray God helps us plant a church in this community nearby.”  

5. Pray publicly for church planting

Be bold in prayer for particular places you desire to plant. Or pray particularly for what the church would need in order to be able to plant a church (i.e. planter, team, finances, etc.). 

6. Budget for church planting

Set aside funds for church planter residencies, Pastors College, and leader development. Set aside funds for the first year of the plant. Make it part of your annual budget. This keeps planting in front of the elders and congregation. 

7. Allow others to lead your services

Create opportunities for others to lead in doing things like opening a service, reading scripture, leading a prayer, or casting a vision for a new small group. Planting requires more leaders. Give them opportunities to lead. Help and coach them along. 

8. Let people preach for the first time  

When the church has one or two gifted teachers, it can be easy to stop developing preachers. Invite others to the pulpit for the first time and help them grow. Planting requires more gifted teachers on many levels of the church– both sent to the church plant and staying with the sending church. 

9. Establish a preachers' club

Invest in men by helping them specifically learn to preach – walk through a curriculum (like the Homiletics coursework at the Pastors College, or Simeon Trust). Give participants a chance to share a message with the rest of the group and give them feedback. 

10. Spread preaching across the pastoral team

Share the pulpit with your pastoral team. Spreading the preaching load regularly helps planting in many ways: it gives others opportunities to grow their gifts, it builds the church into multiple leaders, and creates time for pastors to invest in other areas of the church like leadership development. 

11. Offer internships

Bring people into the work. Interns can be paid or unpaid, full-time or part-time. But the key is being intentional, having clear goals for the internship, giving opportunities to lead out, and developing them. 

12. Publish a process for making pastors

Write down a development process from start to finish. Training pastors takes an intentional plan to take a man from a faithful member to a pastor. 

13. Know the SGC Best Practices.

Understand the current steps and guidelines for planting within Sovereign Grace. We plant together. 

14. Train pastors to be lead pastors.

Develop the gifts and abilities of your team so that they can lead a church as well. Often the strongest plants are those led by experienced pastors. 

15. Send men to our Pastors Conference.

Let them see the family of churches. Introduce people to the whole family of churches where they can be encouraged by what God is doing around the world. Help them begin to build relationships with your team and others. 

16. Collaborate with your nearest sister church(es).

Do something with another Sovereign Grace church. Working together on mission gets both churches in the rhythm of collaborating on missional endeavors like planting. 

17. Collaborate with other local churches.

Do something with another church in your town. Getting involved in your community alongside others helps you 

18. Make church planting a part of every pastor’s job description.

Put something planting-related in every job description. While not every pastor is called to plant, every pastor is called to the work of supporting church planting – whether in leading prayer, preaching about planting, training leaders, missions, etc. 

19. Introduce your church to missional leaders.

Highlight those in the congregation gifted and fruitful in sharing the gospel, encouraging others to follow their example. 

20. Invite prospective church planters to join you.

Invite men aspiring to ministry to consider joining you in your vision to plant. Be direct and clear in your invitation, while not making promises for a particular outcome. Win them to the mission. 

21. Be open to planting again.

Plant and then start again. The mission isn’t over once you plant; the goal is faithfulness year over year.