God Never Called You to Start a Church

Last updated on: March 17, 2020 at 12:07 pm by Rob Dalrymple

God Never Called You to Start a Church 2020-03-17T12:07:43-08:00 Rob Dalrymple

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You can’t start a church. Period. Jesus said so! It is not your decision to start one. It is Christ’s. It is He who said, “I will build My Church” (Matt 16:18).

Now, perhaps you are called to lead a church. I am just saying that you can’t start you own!

“But I prayed about this and God has shown me and others many signs that confirm this calling.” You may very well be called to be a lead pastor, but starting a church independent of the Church cannot be what God is calling you to do.

I respect very much your honest and sincere conviction that this is true. But allow me to say several things.

1) I wonder if you might be confusing your general call to ministry and your giftings as a pastor, with a perceived call to start a specific local church.

I am sure that many others around you have come to you and supported your convictions; including men and women who are mature believers. In addition, things are unfolding around you that confirms that it is the work of God: a building has opened up; resources have become available, people have volunteered to help with ‘x’, ‘y’, and ‘z’, etc.

But realize first that many others have had the same convictions and signs from God, and have failed miserably. Now, I affirm that failure is not necessarily a sign that God did not call a person. God sometimes calls us to things that will “fail” (in such instances “fail” is a matter of perspective). The point is that such persons were convinced that they were going to build the next successful church, or even megachurch, and it never happened.

2) How many of the people around you that are confirming your call are really adequately trained in Scripture, church government, the history of the Church, theology, etc., to provide this level of counsel?

They may, and in fact I am sure they are, be godly men and women. But many evangelicals have a poor sense of “church” today and therefore do not even consider the fact that Scripture forbids us from wandering off from the larger body of Christ and starting a church on our own.

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