Part of the Process

“I know this is short notice, but I was wondering if you would be up for driving out either tomorrow or Saturday to meet and pray over the area we’re considering starting a church?”

I stared at these words on my phone’s screen for a few moments, fighting the impulse to groan.

Except for two words, everything about this text seemed exciting to me. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Literally, it was a text from my dream job.

See, I’m a church planting major. I want to plant churches. From scratch.

When I first heard about this idea of church planting, it sounded difficult, mysterious, and strange. It sounded like the perfect adventure. So when it came time to choose my career path, I asked God to use His imagination on me. That might have been a mistake, because God’s imagination made church planting the logical choice of major.

Then I started taking classes on church planting. I learned about all the theories, all the strategies, all the philosophies, and all the models. I heard story after story and visited church after church from around the country, trying to figure out how to “do church” in its various and effective forms. I was a church planter in my heart, and I became a church planter on paper.

Then came the gaping problem: I had never actually done it.



No amount of excitement or study ever seemed to answer my gnawing question: How, exactly, do you start a church from scratch?

Then this text came. And, because of two words, I almost missed my answer.

The text came from the director of a church planting organization I hope to work for this summer, planting a church in a major metropolitan area.

For the first time, I was gonna do it. I was going to plant a church. I was going to be a part of the process.

But as I looked at that text, I zeroed in on two words:
“Driving out.”

That meant a 5 hour round trip and gas money that I didn’t really have at the moment. 5 hours of just me and my car and the open road, and for what? Just to pray? An hour of prayer and a free lunch?

Then it hit me.

Prayer is the process I so desperately wanted to see.

That was my answer I was so desperately looking for. That’s how you plant a church from scratch:
Prayer.
Hours and hours of prayer.

And I almost missed it over gas money.

Prayer isn’t just a part of the process to church planting either. It is the process of our Christian walk. Yet we treat it like an inconvenience, habit, or afterthought.

Maybe it’s because we don’t live lives that need prayer. Maybe it’s because we think small. Maybe it’s because we never try anything that’s too hard for us to do on our own.

Maybe we need to start living our lives on the edge of faith. And let ourselves be a part of His process.

Perhaps prayer is what we need most...


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Ben Michaels 



is a Junior at Ozark Christian College studying preaching and church planting.  He blogs at A Rainy Day in Switzerland frequently and considers himself a coffee addict who loves to tell stories. When he was little, he had a dream to become a garbage man, because he thought they only worked one day a week.