Tim Morey - Planting a Church Without Losing Your Soul: Nine Questions for the Spiritually Formed Pastor

PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE facing the church in the West is how to plant churches that are healthy Christian communities themselves and are vital to their local communities. Even with all of the great revivals of evangelicalism in the last half of the twentieth century, those under thirty years of age are only about 8 percent evangelical today. The past few decades have seen an explosion of interest in church planting, whole church planting movements, and professional training for church planters. Yet the decline continues. Something more is needed.

The reality is that healthy leaders plant healthy churches. Evangelistic leaders plant churches that seek to evangelize. Leaders who care about justice and the marginalizedwell, you know the rest.

And so Tim Morey has taken on one of the central concerns for Christians in North America. The critical place of leaders in the health and growth of Christianity is the subtle background theme that is woven throughout this volume. Leadership is absolutely critical, but it is not just a matter of what a leader does. Of greatest importance is who a leader is and what a leader is becoming. Tim leads us into this world of a leader becoming, and that includes becoming comfortable with herself or himself.

When I was in the planning stages of starting a church planting program, I did a year of informal research to find out what the main subjects were that needed to be covered by a theological seminary. What should we offer to help build strong and competent church planters? I learned a lot. However, what caught me by surprise was the universal need for spiritual formationdeep personal work in the life of the church planterto prevent depression, failure, and even suicide.

It was then that I realized planting a church is very difficult. The stress on personal lives and on families and friendships is great. Many people lose their best friends who decide not to be part of this new adventure. Marriages are stressed when people stop coming to your church. And then there is the problem of money. One denominational executive mentioned flatly: We had two church planters commit suicide last year.

This volume deals with vital issues for the church in North Americavital issues that focus on the foundation for healthy churches, which is the formation of the leader. Biblical, pastoral, narrative, historical, and even psychological in orientation, Tim moves easily from one mode to the next. His variegated approach is necessary for a volume like this. Some of us will connect directly with the stories of failure or the surprising stories of success. Some of us will be moved and changed as we see passages of Scripture in a new light, brought to bear on the life of the church planter.

There is another genius to this book. Tims humility in talking about his own failures makes it easy for us, the readers, to empathize and to learn from his mistakes (and some successes). This book will help us grow in empathy, one of the lost virtues in our contemporary world of multitasking and thoughtless quick responses on social media. And, by the way, Tim talks about empathy and suffering in . It may be a good idea to start in that chapter.

As I was reading through this book I wanted to pick up the phone and thank Tim for writing a book on spirituality for seminary presidents! No, this is not written for folks like myself, but I found myself grateful for what is written for a different audience. So many of the important lessons of life, especially the life of a leadersacred rhythms, suffering, humility, power, pace, obscurityare found in these pages.

Please read this book slowly and talk to your spouse, spiritual director, family, or church small group about it. Mull over the concepts. Pick up your Bible and look at the passages for yourself. And pray.

I should also add that this book is part of a quartet of books about church planting. The first book, Why Church?, gave an overview of what the church (or a local church) can and should be. This third volume, Planting a Church Without Losing Your Soul, is the critical one, for if the church planter is not healthy, all the right theology and strategy is for naught. The fourth volume will be on the missional pastoranother long-overdue book.

Lesslie Newbigin, missionary to India and to England, said on a number of occasions that the local church must be a signpost of the kingdom. However, this will happen only if the churches are led by leaders who are being made more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Tim Morey is a helpful guide for us on that journey.

SCOTT W. SUNQUIST
president, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary