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Writing on the spiritual life of a church planter is a difficult assignment for me. For one thing, the topic of spiritual health is always a rather elusive one. It is hard enough to know the true condition of one's own soul, let alone to give advice to others. Paul wrote, "I do not even judge myself.  My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me." (1 Cor. 4:3b-4) Even Apostles, it seems, found their own hearts too slippery to pin down. Another reason this assignment is hard, is because the little I do know about spiritual growth tells me that I fall far short of where I ought to be. I would love to read a good article on the church planter's spiritual life, but I doubt that I am qualified to write one.

Nevertheless, this subject is far too important for us to ignore. Of all the qualifications that relate to a person's fitness to lead a new church, one's personal spiritual life is definitely at the top of the list. More than strong, visionary leadership or solid preaching from the pulpit, what the church of Jesus Christ needs is pastors who walk with God. Robert Murray Mc'Cheyne, a successful pastor from 19th century Scotland, wrote, "My people's greatest need is my personal holiness."

Are church planters different than anyone else?
An obvious question to ask is whether the spiritual life of church planters should be treated as a separate topic. When it comes to the dynamics of following Christ, are church planters really different than anyone else? The answer is clearly: No. Jesus told us that there is only one narrow path that leads to life. Every Christian is called to travel that path, whether they plant a church or not. Church planters fight temptation and grow in their faith the same way that all believers do.

On the other hand, there are reasons why church planters probably need to tend their hearts with greater vigilance than others do. One reason is that the responsibilities are greater for those who lead the church. "For you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." (James 3:1) The consequences of moral failure (or even of spiritual laziness) in the life of a congregation's founding pastor could have effects that devastate a church for generations. Not only are the responsibilities greater when starting a new church, but in addition to this the attack is usually more intense. The Bible leaves us with no doubt that, as followers of Christ, we have an enemy. I suspect that the devil opposes the planting of new churches more than any other activity we could do. If he can cripple church planters with discouragement; if he can bring division into our homes; if he can seduce us with some temptation; if he can limit the size of our faith; if he can get us too busy to pray ... then he probably has very little to fear from the founding of our new church. Because of these realities, it can be helpful for us to explore the issues of the Christian's spiritual life from the specific point of view of planting a church.

What does a healthy spiritual life look like?
Many books have been written to describe the dynamics of a healthy, growing Christian life. It is far beyond the scope of this article to explore this in any depth. But, to keep things simple, it seems to me that there are three important areas of a church planter's spiritual life: prayer, obedience and passion.

Home fellowship groups meet in homes for Bible study, prayer, friendship and outreach

Prayer: When asked what the secret was to his fruitful ministry, Charles Spurgeon replied, "Knee work! Knee work!" He was not alone in this opinion. Throughout the generations, those ministers whose work seems to have produced eternal fruit for God's glory have almost always reported that the one indispensable dimension of their ministry was prayer. Humble adoration of the Father; earnest repentance of sin; focused intercession for the church and for the lost ... all of these should be part of the church planter's prayer life.

As important as this is, however, I find that the many demands of modern church planting seem to conspire together to keep me from praying. It is amazing how easy it is to invest my time in studying and planning and networking with people, and to find, at the end of a week, that I have spent little focused time in prayer. What is helping me with this is to realize how essential self-discipline is. Prayer seldom "just happens" without intentional effort. I have learned that I need to set my alarm, wake up early, make some strong coffee and let prayer and Bible reading be the first act of my day, or else other matters will quickly push it to the side. I am also learning that I need to write into my schedule specific time when I will intercede for the people of my church. This is as much a part of my job as anything else I do in the week. I should feel as ashamed of going a week without praying for the church as I would to stand in the pulpit on Sunday and say, "I failed to prepare a message this week." Almost any other task in the church can be delegated to others, but not our responsibility to pray. The Apostles made this clear when they said, "We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." (Acts 6:4)

A thought that really drove home to me the importance of my prayer life as a pastor was the realization that the root cause of prayerlessness is pride. When my prayers are few it is not primarily because I am overly busy. The real reason is my pride; at some level I am starting to believe that I am strong enough and smart enough to do God's work without God. The gospel tells me that Jesus died to rescue me from my sin. Thus, it reminds me that I am a sinner, and can do nothing good on my own. It also reminds me that I am accepted by God, and can approach Him without fear. Both of these thoughts move me to pray.

Obedience: Recently I found myself in a situation where by slightly shading the truth about a certain matter, I could save myself ninety bucks. With a family of six and a church planter's salary, ninety dollars was not something I was eager to lose. Besides, it was likely that no one would ever know what I had done. I wish I could tell you that I refrained from lying out of the pure integrity of my heart. I didn't. I refrained from lying for another reason. I was afraid of the consequences that even a secret act of disobedience might produce in my ministry and in my walk with the Lord.

Paul wrote, "Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work." (2 Timothy 2:20-21) Although we are sinners and there is never anything we could do to merit being used by God, these verses seem to say that the way God uses us in His kingdom will be affected by the purity and obedience of our lives. God is not necessarily looking for the gifted and talented. He is seeking people whose hearts are committed to obey Him.

In his book Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, Donald S. Whitney suggests that one of the clearest indicators of the true condition of our soul is whether or not we still grieve over sin. He writes, "The closer you get to Christ, the more you will hate sin; for nothing is more unlike Christ than sin. Because Jesus hates sin, the more like Him you grow the more you will grow to hate sin. And the more you hate sin, the more you will grieve whenever you realize that you have embraced that which killed your Savior." These words have been meaningful to me, because I often find my heart growing immune to the Spirit's conviction as I make excuses for tiny areas of compromise in my life. I often have to repent of this, and look to my Savior to help me. I find myself praying, as Charles Wesley sang:

I want a principle within of jealous godly fear,
A [sensitivity to] sin, a pain to feel it near.
Help me the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire;
To catch the wand'ring of my will, and quench the kindling fire.

The gospel encourages me to be ruthless in attacking the sin in my life. As I sort through the messy closets of my heart, I never need to fear that I will discover some sin so ugly that the Lord will find me repulsive and kick me out of His family. The gospel assures me that I am accepted by the Father for His Son's sake, not because of any merits of my own. Therefore, God's love for me is an undying love. This gives me the confidence I need to enter into a "no-holds-barred" wrestling match with my indwelling sin. Every nasty thought or impure motive I encounter is something Jesus has already atoned for on the cross. I can battle my sin with the confidence that victory has already by won by my Lord.

Passion: In addition to obedience and prayer, one other dimension of a church planter's spiritual life is passion. Do we have a heart-felt love for Christ? Are we consumed with concern for the lost? Are the affections of our hearts moved when we exalt the Lord in worship? Are there any tears in our prayers?

Admittedly, all of this is subjective and very hard to define. We are all wired a little differently in terms of our emotions, and we do not want to mistake shallow sentimentalism for true spiritual health. However, it is hard to imagine that God's Spirit can be actively working in our lives without us at least feeling something. Wesley Duewell's book, Ablaze for God has helped me to see this. As he points out, few pastors over the years who have been used greatly by God have been people who approached the ministry with the sterile sophistication of professional practitioners. Most of them felt deeply their love for the Lord and their burden for the lost. It is reported that George Whitefield almost always preached with tears rolling down his cheeks. He said, "Whole days and weeks have I spent prostrate on the ground in ... prayer." Dwight Moody, it is said, never spoke of the possibility that a person might be spiritually lost without his voice choking up in sorrow. It is recorded of John Welch, son-in-law of John Knox, that he "often in the coldest winter nights was found weeping on the ground and wrestling with the Lord on account of his people."

I cannot say that my emotions have been as intense as these. But I have learned to recognize a certain hardness and barrenness that creeps into my heart whenever my passion for the Lord declines. To me this is an indication that my priorities and schedule are out of balance again, and that I need to get alone to seek the heart of God. Knowing that Christ gave Himself for me encourages me to do so. I know that, because His death has satisfied the justice of God for me, I will be welcomed by the Father, no matter how I have strayed. This invites me to seek to live as close to God as I possibly can.

Jesus said, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13) As a church planter, I often find myself asking God to fill me again with a sense His Spirit's presence and power.