This book review will provide
a summary, critique, and evaluation of
authors Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas’
book, “Launch: Starting a New Church from Scratch,” regarding its effectiveness in helping new and seasoned church planters launch a church from the ground up.
Summary
The authors
Searcy and Thomas wrote this book to help Christians who felt a call on their lives to be a church planter have the steps
needed to bring that call to fruition. Using their own experiences of
church planting, they knew that it would be helpful to create an all-in-one
book where church planters could have valuable information to make church
planting become a reality. The authors immediately begin by giving nine tips of
wisdom for successful church planting. Those tips include: being sure of God’s
calling, being unafraid to fundraise, build from the outside in, do not use
small groups, youth groups, or membership requirements to launch, focus on
unchurched, be balanced, starting a church can be done fast as well as church
growth.
The authors encourage the readers to utilize the information within the pages
of the book to be a real-time manual in church planting and the knowledge
gained will guarantee success as well and utilizing their online source at www.ChurchFromScratch.com
for additional resources.
Searcy and
Thomas have they consider to be the three deadly sins when it comes to church
planting: the lack of God’s calling, lack of having a strategy, and the lack of
monetary resources.
A person must know that they are called
as explained by the authors before
attempting to launch a church or they will become easily discouraged and give
up. The lack of strategic planning can cause a
church plant to fail before it begins. Also, the lack of adequate resources
will hinder the church plant from being able to thrive according to the authors
fully, and this is why there must be a foundation on which the church is to be
built for it to be able to succeed.
The book, Launch, details four calls of a church
planter. These calls include: having the initial call to start a church through
prayer and Bible study, surprise calling, having holy discontent through wanting
improvement, a burden for the lost, and Godly confirmation through wise counsel.
The authors also emphasized understanding the call upon your spouse’s life if applicable
and the call to a certain geographical location and people.
The authors show the reader that God is a
God of strategy which is all throughout the Bible from Genesis through
Revelation. The most important strategy, according to Searcy and Thomas, was
God’s plan of redemption to save man from their sins. In
understanding the reason for having a strategy, the authors highlight nine
important factors to consider: a strategy promotes faith, provides structure,
boosts thoughts on paper, provides focus, encourages research, promotes team
building, saves time, delegates duties, and heightens church growth.
SMART
editing is what the authors suggest using after developing your church-planting
strategy. The acronyms SMART stands for S-Specific, M-Measurable, A-Attainable,
R-Relevant, and T-Time-bound.
Following this ensures that the strategy will obtain a high level of
performance with realistic expectations. Searcy and Thomas proceed to discuss
the elements of fundraising, creating a budget, and not being afraid to seek
financial assistance from others. They encourage church planters to have
financial partners who are willing to finance the cause of the ministry.
Finances will be needed according to the
authors to guarantee the success of a
church plant.
An important
key element in church planting according to Searcy and Thomas is building your
staff. Staff building includes having the
lead pastor who may also be the church planter, worship leader, and children’s ministry leader. When searching
for someone to fill these positions, the authors give the reader the three Cs
to look out for: character, chemistry, and competency.Any
of these important elements missing would be a recipe for disaster in the
making. The authors give ten lessons from their own experience in their
ministry called the Journey:
a.)
Forget having enough money upfront to hire staff.
b.)
Hire the staff before the growth.
c.)
Hire slow and fire even faster.
d.)
Hire part-time first and then full-time.
e.)
Make use of volunteers before hiring.
f.)
Encourage staff to find additional volunteers.
g.)
Make weekly staff meetings a priority.
h.)
Hold staff accountable and ensure effective
communication.
Location for the new church plant was also a factor that the
authors discussed in keeping with the geographical location of people that the
church planter felt led to reach. Searcy and Thomas encourage church planters
to have a regular meeting place if possible and to have church services
regularly. Their suggestion was for at least once a month for six consecutive
months. Therefore, helping the invitees
to look forward to meeting at an appointed scheduled time and doing a message
series was also suggested to keep them coming back. The
launch team should be separate from the core group according to the authors.
After the official launch, the launch
team’s work is over, but the core group
is to stay in place and at no time should they be intertwined.
Finally, after all of the steps have been taking in
successfully doing the launch of the new church, the passion for reaching
people must be maintained by teaching the
staff and other how to go about evangelizing to others so that they will not
become stagnant.
The ministry of the gospel must continue at this stage so the authors give tips
to help keep the spark going so that there will not just be an inward focus but
a continuous outreach for the winning of souls.
Critique
The book was
a very good source of information for the new church planter. The authors did
an excellent job building from the ground up in helping someone who has never
had any idea about church planting to be able to be confident in their newly
acquired knowledge gained from these two authors in being able to establish a
new church. Searcy and Thomas’ goal were to give others the knowledge that they were not able to easily find when they were
beginning their church-planting missions. They were successful in
accomplishing their goal because if the steps outlined throughout this book is followed, there would be little room for
error from the human side of things.
There was a
section in the book that dealt with finances and how this is very important
when starting a church.
Although finances can help hugely, I do
believe that where God sends you, He will provide. I know that the authors were
trying to not make this sound too much like a business, but one cannot wait for the conditions to be perfect as they did
mention in the book. Souls are being lost
every day, so it seems that more focus
may need to be spent on the evangelism
aspect than on building funds while not neglecting it altogether.
The authors
also discussed finding a worship leader as being key to having a successful
church plant. Worship in instrument and song is important in the house of the
Lord. Having someone who can lead out in this would most definitely be an asset
to the ministry. Nevertheless, if the church plant is unable to find a good worship leader, having someone to just
lead out in song and praise as mentioned in the book will suffice until God
makes provisions in that area. The authors may have placed greater emphasis on
this because too many churches have great rock bands and yet, the nation and
body of Christ is in trouble spiritually overall.
This book,
once again, was an excellent read and had an invaluable amount of information
which a new and seasoned church planter
can use. This book can be used for those
who wish to plant home churches as well because the amount of home churches is
growing due to many people seeking more knowledge based on truth than
seeker-friendly ideology being taught in the
majority of today’s pulpits. A church planter can use this one book to get off
to a great start, and it can be their GPS
after they have received confirmation from God as to the call on their life as
a church planter.
Evaluation
I found this book to be very
useful for my ministry in the present and future. This book alone will be a
great guide that I will incorporate in future church planting. The authors did
an excellent job in helping me to understand the dynamics of successfully
planting a church from the ground up. I was impressed by the knowledge that
they were able to give in this one book that will allow someone who does not
have any former knowledge as to church planting to be able to use
easy-to-follow steps in establishing a house of worship wherever God has placed
them geographically.
I would
recommend this book to others because it is easy to read, steps are clear and
precise as well as the information offered is applicable in any geographical
location rather in the United States and
abroad. I would, however, focus more on teaching sound doctrine than anything about church planting because there is not a
need for just having more of the same, but
there is a famine in the land for truth. We have churches all across the United
States, but few churches are teaching truth in the pulpits and helping their
members to grow fully in Christ.
Conclusion
A church planter first needs to know that
he/she has heard from God and that this is the call that He has placed upon
their life. Having a good manual to follow such as what was presented in Searcy
and Thomas’ book will help to achieve maximum success as the Holy Spirit leads.
The authors of Launch successfully wrote a book that new and seasoned church planters could use for their new church plants as well
as being able to teach others the concepts learned from the pages of their book. The book gives the guidelines, but Christ must be the foundation on which the
church is built.
Bibliography
Searcy, Nelson, and Kerrick Thomas. Launch: Starting a New Church from
Scratch. Grand
Rapids: Baker Books, 2017.
