9 Ways Spiritual Direction Helps Church Planters
Several months ago I was invited to lead a retreat for a group of church planters within my denomination on the topic of spiritual direction. It was such a great privilege to sit in that space intersecting God’s mission in the world and spiritual formation. It sparked quite a bit of conversation. Spiritual direction can be a tremendous gift for you when you’re a church planter.
In his book called Spiritual Direction, Henri Nouwen writes, “A block of marble cannot carve itself, it needs a sculptor. An athlete needs a person trainer or coach. Likewise, a person of faith will certainly benefit from a spiritual director. We are all very susceptible to self-deception and are not always able to detect our own fearful games or blind spots.”
Our self-deception knows no bounds. This is true for all of us, but there’s a particular way this sits with a church planter. Planters are pioneers and entrepreneurs. They are visionary. If you’re a planter, you do what you do because you can see something the rest of us are missing. But sorting through what’s from God and what’s from you requires discernment in community.
Spiritual direction provides one arena to discern, as Nouwen calls them, our “fearful games” and “blind spots.” Here are nine ways that direction helps you if you’re a church planter.
1. Reminding you it’s not about you
There’s a piece of the American Self-Made Man narrative baked into the contemporary vocation of church planting. The world of church planting has its own cult of celebrity. Your experience of church planting could lead you to write a book. Or speak at a conference. But probably not.
A spiritual director reminds you that the most effective church planters have already been forgotten. Effectiveness in ministry isn’t measured in how big your church grows or how fast it multiplies. Effectiveness is faithfulness to Jesus and your commitment to be a healthy human being.
2. Managing expectations
You have a vision for what your church should look like. You may have a pastor of a mother church or a denominational supervisor who has a vision of what it should look like. Your launch team may have yet another vision. Some of these visions can work together. Some of them are mutually exclusive. How do you know what to do?
A spiritual director will ask, “What does God want for this church? What does God want for you?” The vision is God’s. The dream is God’s. The church is God’s. You get to play one little part.
3. Listening to the Holy Spirit
There is no more crucial skill to being a Christian, much less for a Christian leader, than listening to the Holy Spirit. There is no more compelling reason to plant a church than to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God calls it into being. How do you know that that voice you say is God is really God?
As a church planter, you have to hone this skill. You can’t cut corners here. People are watching you. People discovering Jesus for the very first time are watching you. A spiritual director knows what sounds like God and what doesn’t and knows how to sift your genuine Divine encounters from your selfish ambitions.
4. Making space for the Holy Spirit
You’ve probably read a lot of books about church planting. You’ve probably been to some conferences about church planting. Maybe you got a degree in church planting. But church planting is much, much more than accumulating information and mastering techniques.
Anyone who’s practiced ministry for more than a few seasons will tell you there’s very little in the church and in the community that we have control over. The more we think we control, the less we actually do. Spiritual direction reminds us to keep space open for the Holy Spirit to surprise us.
5. Keeping the main thing the main thing
In the midst of recruiting and vision-casting and fundraising and teaching and preaching and finding a place to meet, how’s your prayer life? Where are you present to God in the endless tasks? Are you reading Scripture to encounter God or only for the next talk?
A spiritual director asks probing questions to help you keep from objectifying your spiritual disciplines. How are you sleeping? When was the last time you and your spouse went on a date? How are you prioritizing margin? There will come a day when you are no longer a church planter. Who will you be then? A director lovingly holds you accountable to the important things in life.
6. Naming and maintaining healthy boundaries
When I led a retreat for a group of planters, and this topic of boundaries was a lively conversation. As people who feel called to ministry, we find it especially difficult to say “no” to people. And when you’re a planter, always conscious of how many people are connecting, how can you say no? When you’re the only staff member, and you’ve managed to attract a community of needy individuals, where do you draw the lines of availability?
A spiritual director reminds you that you’re not Superman. You’re not supposed to be Superman. It’s okay to turn off your phone. It’s okay to limit your availability. To be human is to be finite. In learning to name boundaries, you not only come to terms with your own finiteness but you model to those around you how to healthily depend on one another and not just you.
7. Establishing healthy rhythms of rest and retreat
Church planting has a way of attracting workaholics. Or maybe that’s just ministry in general. We love the work, and we don’t know how to turn it off. But without consistent rhythms of Sabbath and retreat you short-circuit and burnout.
The regular practice of spiritual direction is an intentional hour each month where you sit still and you pay attention to God. You get some time to be mindful and quiet about the work of the Spirit. Your emotional health depends upon healthy rhythms like this.
8. Remembering the slow work of God
Nothing in nature grows overnight. Here the planting language and metaphor prove helpful because nothing planted in the dirt grows fruit the next day. Yet, we live in a microwave culture. We hate waiting. Our narratives from the business world demand results. We want instant gratification. But nothing grows instantly.
In spiritual direction, we slow down. We breathe. We take notice of the slow work of God that happens over years, sometimes generations. Just because something didn’t happen right away doesn’t mean God was not present. In fact, more often than not, the opposite is true. The work of God most often looks like the tortoise rather than the hare.
9. Doing your inner work and giving space for people to be themselves
Planting a church requires a village. You’re constantly working with people. And let’s be honest. People are a mess. Humanity is a mess, but in church circles we like to bury it and stuff it down and pretend like we’re really nice people. And then it blows up at the most inopportune times. At the same time, the temptation is so strong to objectify and use people, because it takes people to do all the things that churches are supposed to do.
In the novel Glittering Images, spiritual director Jon Darrow tells his directee, “Think of me as the porter… and consider the possibility that life might be less exhausting if you unloaded some of your bags on to my empty trolley.” You’ve got baggage. So do the people you’re gathering together. A director provides a safe place and a healthy place, to unpack your baggage.
Alan Roxburgh in The Missional Leader shares the following story about Michelangelo: “Michelangelo was once observed pushing a huge rock through the streets of Florence. The bemused citizens turned to him in his exertions to ask, ‘Why are pushing that mighty rock, Michelangelo?’ His response was simple but decisive: ‘Because there’s a person inside longing to get out!’”
This is the work of church planting—gathering a church that already exists. A consistent practice of spiritual direction helps keep you healthy and energized as you do that sculpting work in your community.
If you’d like to find a spiritual director in your area, visit Spiritual Directors international, and reach out to one. Or you can send me a note, and we can talk about what spiritual direction might look like for you.