Hey guys. Thanks for your posts. I know when you think "9Marks", you think "sex". Based on the title, I thought Greg's post was going to be about sex also... but it turns out it wasn't. Bummer.

I was talking this weekend with a pastor of a church that is hoping to plant a church from their congregation soon. He was asking a lot of questions about my experience going out from Capitol Hill Baptist Church, both what we (me, the church planter, and the church as a whole) did right and what we would do differently next time.

So I'd like to do a series of posts with a few thoughts, born of experience, on how you as a pastor can help your church plant another church:

1. Don't build your church around yourself. One prominent pastor commented that our church plant would never get off the ground because no one would come to see me preach when they could drive a few more minutes to see Mark Dever (hey, thanks, I don't have enough discouragement in my life). I think that can be true, and it certainly is reflected in the number of prominent pastors that have elected to pipe in video around the area rather than plant churches.

If you teach your people (subtly or not so subtly) that you are the center of the show and that they are lucky to have a pastor like you, then don't be surprised when they don't want to sacrificially go out with a younger guy to embrace the hard work of church planting. But if you teach your people that they are part of a church in order to sacrificially build the kingdom and spread the gospel, they will have a category for leaving to plant a new church.

More later...