The Honest Guide to Church Planting

What No One Ever Tells You About Planting and Leading a New Church

By: Tom Bennardo, Larry Osborne - foreword

Narrated by: Tom Bennardo, Gabe Wicks - foreword

Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Church planting has become a cottage industry. National conferences, hip planting organizations, and all-in-one resource kits celebrate the thrill of pioneering a church and inspire visions of glorious victories. Yet few who respond to the call are warned what they’ll actually encounter: the relentless opposition they’ll endure; the eventual scattering of their entire core group; the failure of their tried-and-true field-tested system.

Here’s the dirty little secret of church planting: The roadside is strewn with casualties. Many have closed their churches. Some left ministry permanently. Others abandoned the faith altogether.

Church planting is at once the greatest and most grueling ministry work on earth. This audiobook is for those toiling in the trenches, those about to bail out, and those considering jumping in. It’s for the church planters laboring and struggling, seeing little movement, and wondering what they’re doing wrong or why God is failing them. It’s also for mother churches, planting organizations, and denominations as a challenge to rethink and recalibrate the way they approach and measure planting endeavors.

The Honest Guide to Church Planting is a fresh and candid conversation about the challenges and joys of planting new churches. Tom Bennardo speaks the truth so those involved in church planting can embrace a more accurate and realistic picture of what planting a church is really like; one that not only enables them to survive, but to thrive in this wondrous work.

©2019 Tom Bennardo (P)2019 Zondervan

Authentic

It is refreshing to hear someone be honest about church planting. The most important thing that Tom mentions is know your heart and for who and what you are doing this for. While other books map out an overgeneralized "plan, Tom is able to address the emotions (highs and lows) and the need to create a network outside your circle to provide a footing when things will assuredly go different than you expect. If church planing is on your heart, read this. If you are in the trenches already, read this. It will strengthen your resolve while affirming your fears and hurts.

I appreciate the author's candidness on the topic

like I said I appreciate the author's candidness on the topic, but there was little information more of his story and opinion

Bold and Eye-opening Read!

This has to be one of my favorite reads, not so much for church planting as is for leadership period! I love the bold and unashamed in-your-facedness of the author to relay such foundational truths to the reader! Thank you and God bless!

Best book I’ve read on Church Planting!

Wow! I wish I had this book when I had started church planting 10 years ago. So good!

Very Good overall

I had a very hard time with the beginning of the book at first and wanted to stop listening. Seemed very negative and bitter, but I am glad I didn’t stop listening. I can say that the beginning of the book really does belong and brings meaning to the rest.

I hate the concept used in the last chapter of “Bait and switch” as God’s strategy to pull us in. Though I would agree with God-given vision not playing out the way we envisioned (I am a visionary and have struggled to understand this for years), I very much disagree that God tried to deceive us into following his plans, and that is very much what came across in this chapter. I think God gives us limited information at times and we fill in the gaps, leaving us disappointed when things don’t go the way we thought, or maybe God uses vision to communicate to us in a way we will understand, but the way he walks it out doesn’t exactly match what we thought it would look like. But I completely disagree with the “bait and switch” metaphor used in this chapter.

Aside from that, this book was greatly appreciated and very helpful as we look to church planting in our future.

Every Pastor and church planter needs to read this!

Great book! If you are a pastor or church planter I believe this is a great resource.

The most negative book on church planting ever

There’s a fine line between being a realist and just being negative. This book wastes no time crossing the threshold into negativity. He lost me at the monologue about how God perpetually weakens us to depend on Him. 30+ years in a ministry family and a long time serving God - I can find no biblical narrative supporting this. We are weak by nature and need to depend on God. It felt like a narcissistic rambling. Ministry is hard. Planting is hard. This book is pure misery though.

Title deceiving 

The book is more on the downs of Church planting not a guide to church planting. Being involved in several church plants I’m not saying that everything that he says is not true. But to be honest with you, it is not a guide, and sometimes he goes too far when talking about God .