Planting a church is a life-altering decision that will affect your family, marriage, finances and emotional health. It is hard enough to attempt to do when you have the grace and calling of God, but when you are not sure of this and it is mere emotion, you will not be able to stand firm when the fires of testing come your way.
4. They went into cultural contexts they were prepared for.
The apostle Peter generally focused on ministering to the Jews (the religion and people he lived among), and the apostle Paul focused on the non-Jews. Both were prepared for this kind of ministry. Paul was not only educated in the Hebrew Scriptures under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), but he also had classical training and quoted Greek poets when ministering to the educated class (read his Mars Hill sermon in Acts 17—especially note verse 28).
5. They had a leadership team.
Paul never went out to plant a church alone. He always had a team that included great leaders like Barnabas, Silas, John Mark, Timothy, Luke and other qualified leaders. Never attempt to plant a local congregation without a faith community supplying a competent planting team to support you.
6. They had financial backing.
Barnabas had houses and real estate that he sold to finance the kingdom (Acts 4), and Paul had the backing of the Antioch church as well as the sponsorship of all the congregations he founded that partnered with him to advance the gospel (Philippians 1:3). Also, some scholars estimate that almost one third of all the men who traveled with Paul were benefactors who financially supported his apostolic ministry. Even Jesus had benefactors who followed Him (Luke 8:2).
It would be crazy in most cases to attempt to plant a church without financial backing unless you have a clear leading from the Lord to do so.
7. They planted congregations that stayed connected to the founding apostolic leader.
Although it seems as though each local congregation was autonomous, they all remained under the oversight of their founding apostolic leader. The apostle may come and go, and not stay for long periods of time after the original process of building the foundation, but he was always welcome to come and speak into the life of the church as well as continue to give oversight from a distance. (The epistles of Paul to the Galatians, Philippians, Ephesians, Timothy and Titus all demonstrate the need for local churches to stay connected to their founding apostolic leader.)
In closing, there are more principles that could be stated in this article. But for the sake of brevity I have only given seven. May God continue to raise up church planters who will plant congregations that will turn the world upside down.
