Article
How to Endure in Church Planting
When those difficult times inevitably come, what will keep you from quitting is the reminder that man didn’t call you to the task, but God did.

How important is a personal calling from God to church planting? While there’s no question we’re all called to the Great Commission, how critical is it that you have a personal calling from God before you plant a church? I want to make the argument that a church planter must have a deep personal sense of calling to endure church planting. Why? It’s simply too difficult. And when those difficult (and sometimes really difficult) times inevitably come, what will keep you from quitting is the reminder that man didn’t call you to the task, but God did.
Look at the SEALs
A good analogy to challenge is the Navy SEALs. They’re an elite special forces unit of the United States Navy. They’re cool, they’re tough, and many, if not most, red-blooded American boys grow up fantasizing about what it would be like to be a part of that elite unit. But there’s an obstacle standing in the way of so many young men’s dreams to be a SEAL. You first have to endure a six-month “selection course” called “BUD/S” (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training). It sounds like you go there to learn how to blow stuff up, but you don’t. You go to BUD/S so the SEALs can find out who is tough enough to become a SEAL. The bottom line is that it’s six months of sanctioned mental and physical torture.
I’ve read several books about the SEALs, and here’s what I’ve learned about the six-month course: the instructors do everything they can to try and make those guys quit. That’s the goal. Actual training to become a Navy SEAL comes after you survive BUD/S. How bad can it be? Imagine doing physical exercise almost nonstop for six months, all while being wet, sandy, cold, sleep-deprived, and covered in rashes and blisters. And that’s the easy part. A typical BUD/S class begins with around 220 men. By BUD/S graduation, there are usually about twenty guys still around.
So why do the SEALs make the selection course so difficult? Because they aren’t looking for the strongest guys or those who can shoot a weapon the best. They teach you all that stuff later. They’re looking for men that have one quality—an absolute refusal to quit. I once knew a SEAL and asked him what it took to make it through BUD/S. He said, “I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to quit. No matter what. I would either get through BUD/S or die trying. Quitting simply wasn’t an option.” Wow.
The number one quality it takes to be a Navy SEAL is a “resolve for the work.” Because when it’s 3 a.m., you’re exhausted, freezing, and swimming in the shark-infested waters of the Pacific Ocean, unless you are absolutely convinced to the core of your being that being a SEAL is what you are going to do with your life, you simply will quit. It’s too hard. Most people do.
The Hard Work of Planting
Here’s the correlation to church planting. Church planting can sometimes look “cool” from the outside. You look at some of the success stories around North America of churches that grew from nothing to several thousand overnight and think, “Maybe this isn’t that hard?” And make no mistake, there are some amazing, fun, and exciting things about being a church planter. But when you pack up your belongings, move to a new town, and try to start something from scratch, it doesn’t take long to realize that the task at hand is difficult. Then throw in the attack of the Enemy, biting sheep, cities hostile to the gospel, friends who betray you, unsaved scoffers, attacking elders, and a nice dose of poverty for you and your family—and you’re just scratching the surface of the difficulty you’ll face as a church planter. What will keep you faithful to endure, when everything within you wants to go take that cush job as an associate pastor of your mega church buddy down the road? The answer is calling.
A planter and his wife better be dead-level certain that God Almighty called them to the task. But if you jumped in for any other reason—money, recognition, being the boss, getting to preach more—when the difficulty comes (and it will), the temptation to quit will be overwhelming, and you’ll walk away. A lot of guys do.
The Apostle Peter tried to quit ministry too. It wasn’t that the task was too hard, but it was more about the shame of denying Jesus on the night Jesus needed him most. After Jesus rose from the grave, Peter quit and returned to what he knew best, fishing. He stayed out all night, no doubt beating himself up over the reality that he had denied Jesus, not once, but three times. But as the sun began to rise over the hills of the Sea of Galilee, Peter strained his eyes and saw Jesus standing there on the beach. Peter realized it was Jesus, threw himself in the water, and swam to the beach. When he got there, Jesus had cooked him breakfast and asked Peter a simple question: “Peter, do you love me?” Peter said he did love Jesus. Then Jesus responded: “Good, now go feed my sheep.”
While Peter was far from perfect, from that moment forward, Peter never wavered again. He would endure ridicule, beatings, poverty, persecution, and eventually death because he absolutely refused to quit. What was the change from the Peter who denied and quit and ran, to the man who would endure death before he would walk away? First and foremost, Jesus had risen from the grave. Second, the man who had conquered death had personally called Peter to the task of the gospel. When things got difficult, that was all Peter needed to endure to the end. And the risen Christ is who we need too.