Church Plant Chat

Revitalisation Review: Am I ready to Church Plant?

• Paul Pavlou • Season 5 • Episode 48

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Episode 1: Am I Ready to Church Plant?

Episode Summary:

In this inaugural episode of the Revitalisation Review series, we dive into the deeply personal and practical question: “Am I ready to church plant?” Sharing from his own four-year journey of leading a revitalisation project, your host reflects on the highs, the heartbreaks, and the holy ground of planting not from scratch—but from the remnant of something that once was.


Key Topics Covered:

·       The Call to Plant – How an unexpected seed of calling was sown as a teenager through witnessing his father’s church planting journey.

·       Discerning and Disappointment – A candid look at five failed planting attempts—and the spiritual formation that emerged through rejection, patience, and perseverance.

·       The Shift to Revitalisation – Embracing the challenge of weaving together the old with the new to form something beautifully renewed.

·       The Reality of Readiness – Feeling unprepared despite training—and learning to lead in the unknown.

·       A Tent-Pitching Analogy – A humorous but helpful metaphor for church planting—full of trial, error, and readjustment.

·       Key Learnings – Don’t confuse revitalisation with a blank-canvas plant. Pace matters. Relationships and trust take time. Measure success by spiritual health and transformation, not flashy numbers. Prioritise relational discipleship over grand strategies.

·       Practical Models – From Messy Church to weekly missional rhythms—how a sustainable and relational approach can build trust and community over time.


Reflection Questions:

·       What shape of planting best aligns with your strengths and personality?

·       What problems in leadership or mission stir your passion—and how do they relate to your planting context?

·       What does success look like for you, personally, as a planter?

·       Who else in your sphere might be called to plant?

·       Is the community you’re called to also preparing for what’s coming?


Connect & Continue the Conversation:

Instagram: @churchplantchat
Email: churchplantchat@gmail.com

Subscribe to hear upcoming episodes as we unpack more insights from revitalisation, planting, and leading through change.

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Speaker 1:

Wondering if you're ready to church plant. In this introductory episode of the revitalisation review series, I'll give an overview of my experience leading a four-year revitalisation project focusing on the question am I ready to church plant? Key insights from this episode are then going to be unpacked further in subsequent episodes. So let's get into it. How did I first sense a call to church planting? Well, I never set out to get involved in church planting, but looking back, I think that as a teenager, a seed was sown in me when I witnessed my dad step out into church planting. At the time he was working a secular job and faithfully serving in his local Anglican church, but his vicar sensed a call on his life to start a new church plant. Having seen how normal it seemed for him to be sent out from one church to start another, I assumed that this is what we do in the Anglican church and that it was an institutional norm. Nevertheless, when I started training for ordination, I didn't plan or expect to be involved in church planting myself. In fact, as time went on during that period of training and formation, there was actually a stirring that for a season, I was being called to church plant too. So six and a half seven years ago now, my family and I moved to a new city to take up a church planting curacy post with the expectation that, while performing my duties as a curate, we would be seeking where, how and with whom to plant a church. So what was our experience? Of discernment and disappointment in that place.

Speaker 1:

The discernment process went on throughout the curacy. We were always asking ourselves are we ready to plant? After some time, my wife Hayley and I found a promising place. We made plans, but it all fell through at the last moment. We grieved for the loss, picked ourselves up, started the discernment process anew. We found a new area and again dreamed dreams and made plans. After meeting church leaders, the opportunity fell apart again. The vision for creating a church plant in that area simply wasn't shared by everyone around the table. So what lessons did we learn from failed attempts to plant? Well, this cycle repeated with more failed attempts. In fact, throughout the three year curacy, we experienced five failed attempts to start a plant. This repeated cycle of uncertainty and disappointment forced us to question many things. Later on, however, I could see that God was doing a deep work in us building character on patience, resilience, dependency on him and learning to handle disappointment.

Speaker 1:

These experiences, though challenging, have been crucial in our spiritual growth and in preparation for what we have been doing over the last four years. So how did God lead us into revitalisation? Well, eventually, through various conversations, god opened a door for me to lead a type of church planting known as revitalization. This is the weaving together of an existing church remnant with some new people to try and re-energize, revitalize the church for its mission. So what made us say yes, even when it looked hard? Well, when we looked around the area where this revitalization would take place, I didn't experience a blinding Damascus Road style revelation that this was the right location. But I do remember saying this is going to be difficult. And almost as soon as those words left my lips, I sensed the Holy Spirit saying yes, but I will be with you. With that, we were curious enough to say yes to the opportunity. So, with the spirit's assurance and a deep breath, we landed at St Mary Magdalene with Risen Christ in Wyke and Coventry about four years ago now, to begin the work of getting to know the church remnants that we would weave into, while simultaneously building relationships with the parent church, st Mark's, coventry, which would be sending us, along with a few other people and some funding to help. Did I feel ready when we started? After a few months we migrated from our parent church to the new setting. Even by that point I realised that I did not feel especially ready.

Speaker 1:

With church planting, you are not stepping into something that already has an established formula or pattern of working, so you don't necessarily know the shape of the thing that you need to be ready for Initially. Therefore, levels of risk and stepping into the unknown are high. You are navigating your way in the moment. So what does church planting feel like in real time?

Speaker 1:

To give an insight into what that first year felt like for many of us, at a Christian camping festival last year I was trying to set up my tent and our curate was helping when we were trying to lay the ground sheet. We laid it and then realised that it was the wrong way around, so had to unpeg it and move it all over again. We ended up doing this about four to five times, because each time when I tried to put the tent over it, we realised that it wasn't the right way around or wasn't folded over in the right shape. On the final attempt, somewhat exasperated by the reshaping of the ground sheet and its adjustments. My curate said to me this is a bit like our church plant model, isn't it? And she was right. We have had to keep adjusting, tweaking, remoulding and shaping along the way.

Speaker 1:

So what mistakes did I make early on? Well, I'll unpack this in much greater detail in later episodes, but just as a quick update on that, on reflection, initially I realised that I'd been overly focused on achieving what I deemed as success in my eyes, rather than taking time to appreciate what our context looked like in God's eyes. This led me to being overly hasty at times in trying to start things too quickly rather than take more time to be still and build deep relationships with people. This was partly due to my not understanding that a revitalization plant differs from a blank canvas plant, especially around pace. So what is the difference between a revitalization or, as the old language was, a church plant, graft? What's the difference between that and a blank canvas plant? Well, if a plant that is started from scratch is a firework, then a revitalisation plant is a slow burning candle. Because of inheriting a congregation, cultures, buildings and so on, it takes more time to bring people with you when embarking on new ways of doing things. It requires nuanced relationships, meeting people where they are rather than trying to project them to where you want them to be. As such, we have learned to engage with our congregation and community as they are and to assess our ministry accordingly. So what does success in revitalisation actually look like? Again, I'll unpack more of this later in this series, but as part of the overview of this episode, here's the following In a revitalisation, success involves helping a formerly struggling church to become healthy, with the Spirit guiding us through what I refer to as the ministry of the one, working individually with each person and gradually helping them to progress in their relationship with Jesus, the Bible and the church, in a step-by-step walk alongside them.

Speaker 1:

We also face challenges in simultaneously addressing various areas of decline in church, such as tightening operational processes, building works, finances, lower numerical attendance for services, while introducing new elements associated with planting, such as starting two new worshipping communities and missional activities that had not been done before. This process involves considerable groundwork, experimentation and the putting in place of new processes, and their results take time to materialise. So those instant successes you may be looking for may just take a little bit longer than normal. But what hidden work is God doing under the surface? Because you can believe he is? A great deal of the work in helping to gear the church up for its new mission and activity and relationship building with the community for us has been under the hood work. Not very glamorous, I know, but its roots have been growing deeper and wider and at the beginning were not immediately visible. Perceived successes may therefore appear small compared with something that can be started quickly from a blank sheet without a previous culture to work with, but this work is significant in the kingdom of God. Be encouraged in those early days when it feels slow.

Speaker 1:

You know our story has been one of becoming one of consistent small cultural changes within the church that we've joined with and in the connections being made with the surrounding community. So what small signs of growth have we celebrated? These small successes, in inverted commas, have been where people we've inherited having their faith reignited. Members of the community joining our bible journaling group, learning about God's word, people walking through the doors simply to see what's happening, including young people and children encouraging their parents to come to church, which is lovely, because that was one of the first prophetic words we had when we started praying about this project. Also, friendships have been forged between the existing congregation and those that we brought to join in the work. These have all become valued achievements.

Speaker 1:

A key change that we have made along the way, which we find ourselves coming back to time and again, is to prioritize relationship building over big vision strategy or fancy events. We have learned that values and actions outweigh vision and words. Speaking vision to people we inherited hasn't counted for an awful lot, at least not in the early days. They've not been as interested in the big picture as I expected. They want to see us live out kingdom values.

Speaker 1:

This is parish ministry serving parishioners is parish ministry serving parishioners. It's why we've moved away from putting on really big community events. To pull off a large event, for instance, like the coronation party we had a while back or a community barbecue, it requires a lot of money and team members. Our team has consisted of myself, my wife, our curate, our PCC, an intern, a part-time community minister, part-time operations manager and kids worker and a part-time youth worker, as well as volunteers from the congregation, of course. And although plenty of people came to big events, we found that we weren't getting much time to actually chat to people, so we stripped back how many big events we do. We kept the food and the fun and unashamedly added a gospel element.

Speaker 1:

So to develop a regular messy church gathering instead? It's cheaper, it's more sustainable, it's got a distinctive teaching block, there's worship, talk, prayer, and it creates opportunities for regular conversations, relationship building and discipleship in between the two new worshipping communities that we've begun the Mercy Church congregation as well as an 11am Sunday congregation, in addition to the 9am Eucharist that we inherited. We sprinkle in light, touch, missional work that intentionally seeks to bless people and provide opportunities to talk, such as stay and play for carers and toddlers, weekly hot chocolate giveaways for local children that's been a big one for us bible journaling, a lunch club for senior citizens this was happening before the revitalization took place, by the way alpha and more depending on the season. So what have we learned about? Relational discipleship? And again, this will be an episode of its own, but the focus of all these activities is really relational discipleship. This has been a big learning point for us, and it's not without its challenges. Building deep and real relationships between a church congregation and also with others, requires vulnerability, facing harsh truths, handling conflicts well, all of which take place when we join with God as a church family in mission and for all its challenges. However, we are seeing wonderful things happen. We have built strong connections with our local schools. People's faith has been reignited within our congregation. We've had a number of baptisms, including youth, children and grown ups. Four other young people have been confirmed. Greater depth of discipleship is taking place. God has really been at work here and it's been an absolute privilege to be part of seeing this church grow in its health once again.

Speaker 1:

Much of what has happened so far I haven't felt ready for, despite all the training, all the books, but God has held us throughout. He has gone over and beyond in filling the gaps of where I've been lacking in my readiness for leading. In particular, I think I came in quite unaware of how long cultural change can take, of how treasured a church's traditions can be to an existing congregation's identity, of the intricate care needed to bring different groups of people together, of the level of essential prayer and of how much we need Jesus in all of what happens. Church planting, revitalisation is indeed a challenging journey, but God has come through with amazing and unpredictable provision. The shape of God's provision has not been predictable, but the promise of his presence with us to do whatever he calls us to is even if and when we do not always feel ready.

Speaker 1:

So, as we wrap up this episode, here are some questions to consider about whether you're ready to church plant. One, what shape of planting would align with your strengths, weaknesses and personality? Two, what are the problems in leadership, in churches or in mission that you want to tackle, and how does this align with the type of planting that you are getting ready for? 3. What does success look like for you personally, as a planter or a leader? Personally as a planter or a leader? Four, who, in your sphere of influence, also needs to consider getting ready to plant? Is the area, the community, the institution that you're part of? Are they preparing to plant and getting ready to plant with you? And, lastly, what experiences have you brought to your planting journey that may be part of the prep for what you're about to step into? Hopefully, those will give you some thoughts to mull on as you discern.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening. If you didn't know already, there's an Instagram account for this podcast, which is at church plant chat, where you can keep up to date with what's happening on the podcast and other bits about planting, but you can also dm me on there if you ever wanted to chat, which I'm always open to, or you can also contact me by email at church plant chat at gmailcom. I'd love to connect with you. So if you'd like to, please do get in touch. Don't hesitate. See you next time.