Stuff Nobody Told Me About Church Planting

Here's My Current List of Things Nobody Told Me About Church Planting 

1. It's not rocket science. With all of the gurus and books circulating around the world, one gets the impression that you need multiple PhD's in missiology or expensive coaching in order to plant a new church. But it's just not true! See "Church Planting: It's Not Rocket Science! Or Is It?" for more information.
2. You just won't believe who turns out to be your strongest opposition. Local pastors will be the greatest source of grief to a church planter. For some strange reason, they seem to get really worked up when they hear about a new church being planted in their community, even though they know that their church will never reach everyone with the Gospel.
3. There's no money in it. Although church planting receives a very high profile in most denominations, they do not allocate the leadership and resources to match the alleged importance of starting new churches.
4. Sponsoring churches are rare! It is extremely difficult to find established churches who are willing to sponsor and support church planting initiatives. Someone (if I can find the source, I'll post it later) did the research and discovered that while pastors planned to get involved in church planting, they felt that they could not do so until they experienced another 25% growth. In other words, the church of 100 people needed to reach 125 before it could plant another church; and the church of 1,000 would need another 250 people before it would be able to commit to planting another church.
5. Genuine church planting ALWAYS requires a strong passion for evangelism. In fact, the two concepts are nearly synonymous in the Apostle Paul's ministry. Anything less is simply what I call "setting up a new franchise" or as someone once put it, "reshuffling the same deck of cards."
6. You don't have to quit your day job to plant a new church. When I first began thinking about ministry, I went to see my pastor to talk about whether I should go to Bible college or a secular university. He said, "Son, get a degree you can eat off of!" It was the best advice anyone has ever given me, since I have always let my secular job pay the bills.
7. Burnout can really sneek up on you and the members of your core group. That's one reason why most church planters will likely see a significant turnover in their core group members by the third year. Disillusioned and worn-out, some of your best people (including some of your leadership) may leave you, unless you take precautions.