Reverend Dave Harvey knows a thing or two about church planting. He’s been doing it in his role as a pastor for the past 36 years, and is now the president of Great Commission Collective, a global church-planting ministry.
He also serves on the board for the Christian Counseling and Educational foundation and travels around the world for conferences where he trains pastors and church planters. His website, AmICalled.com, is encourages and equips current and aspiring church leaders to “live, love, learn and last” in their ministries.
His newest book, The Plurality Principle, encourages church leaders to prioritize plurality—a team of elders working together, each with their own unique skills—to help their churches flourish.
Harvey recently stopped by Focus on the Family to talk to the Church Engagement Team about the challenges and evolution of church planting, the concept of plurality and what pastors can do to plant more successful churches.
“I was converted while in college and shortly after conversion, I began feeling a sense that God may have called me to ministry.” Harvey said. “There was something about being there on Sunday morning where I would hear the pastor preaching, and I’d be sitting there thinking, ‘I wonder how he does that?’ Pretty soon that kind of morphed into, ‘I wonder if I’m supposed to do that?’”
By the time Harvey was 26, he received an invitation to a ministry role at a local church in the Philadelphia area. He stayed at that church for 28 years and was the senior pastor for most of that time.
As senior pastor, he began to plant a number of churches throughout the Philadelphia area.
“There was a real burden I had for church planting,” Harvey said. “The team around me shared that, and that kind of provided an opportunity to give expression to this burden.”
That “burden” led Harvey to expand his vocation beyond the local church to his role with Sovereign Grace Churches, where he oversaw church planting, church care an international outreach. His current role as president of Great Commission Collective is a culmination of three decades in the church-planting ministry.
In that time, Harvey’s seen a lot of things evolve in the church-planting space in terms of its overall popularity, as well as the amount of information and resources available to church planters today.
“When we were doing church planting early on, it wasn’t that it wasn’t being done in other places,” Harvey said. “It just wasn’t being talked about. There weren’t conferences on it. There weren’t a lot of books being written. There was no internet where people were engaging over it.”
As the author of numerous books and articles, and as a speaker at conferences around the world, Harvey is on the forefront of engaging church planters and building leaders in the ministry. He’s dedicated himself to the concept of healthy plurality leadership, in which a team of elders each bring their own unique knowledge and gifts to the church to help it thrive.
The concept of plurality doesn’t often come naturally to many church planters.
“Oftentimes church planters have to go it alone,” Harvey said. “Sometimes they’ll have teams around them. Occasionally, they’ll have really strong leaders, or maybe even an elder or two, but what happens is a church planter can get very accustomed to doing ministry by himself and driving things by force of his own gifts.
“He has to move to a place where he’s ultimately able to train up elders and place the responsibility and the authority for the church into not just one man, but into a group of men. That becomes something of a defining moment for him, because he’s so accustomed to doing things on his own.”
Through his work with Great Commission Collective, Harvey helps church planters work toward that plurality of leadership. They offer assessments, training and residencies that provide exposure to the ministry before the church planter begins serving in the ministry.
“They can have some evaluation of their preaching prior to having to preach every week,” Harvey said. “I’d encourage them to think not only about the local church, but to think about what group they want to be connected with in partnership, that can help them plant the church and move forward. Not only are they able to plant in strength, but they can have people around them who are committed to helping them last long in their leadership.”
For more from Reverend Harvey on the challenges of church planting, watch our four-part video from The Focused Pastor. Each week through the month of July, Harvey will dive into these challenges and offer solutions church planters need to help them avoid these pitfalls.
The post Dave Harvey on the Challenges and Evolution of Church Planting, and the Concept of Plurality appeared first on Focus on the Family.
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He also serves on the board for the Christian Counseling and Educational foundation and travels around the world for conferences where he trains pastors and church planters. His website, AmICalled.com, is encourages and equips current and aspiring church leaders to “live, love, learn and last” in their ministries.
His newest book, The Plurality Principle, encourages church leaders to prioritize plurality—a team of elders working together, each with their own unique skills—to help their churches flourish.
Harvey recently stopped by Focus on the Family to talk to the Church Engagement Team about the challenges and evolution of church planting, the concept of plurality and what pastors can do to plant more successful churches.
“I was converted while in college and shortly after conversion, I began feeling a sense that God may have called me to ministry.” Harvey said. “There was something about being there on Sunday morning where I would hear the pastor preaching, and I’d be sitting there thinking, ‘I wonder how he does that?’ Pretty soon that kind of morphed into, ‘I wonder if I’m supposed to do that?’”
Getting started in church planting
By the time Harvey was 26, he received an invitation to a ministry role at a local church in the Philadelphia area. He stayed at that church for 28 years and was the senior pastor for most of that time.
As senior pastor, he began to plant a number of churches throughout the Philadelphia area.
“There was a real burden I had for church planting,” Harvey said. “The team around me shared that, and that kind of provided an opportunity to give expression to this burden.”
That “burden” led Harvey to expand his vocation beyond the local church to his role with Sovereign Grace Churches, where he oversaw church planting, church care an international outreach. His current role as president of Great Commission Collective is a culmination of three decades in the church-planting ministry.
How church planting as changed
In that time, Harvey’s seen a lot of things evolve in the church-planting space in terms of its overall popularity, as well as the amount of information and resources available to church planters today.
“When we were doing church planting early on, it wasn’t that it wasn’t being done in other places,” Harvey said. “It just wasn’t being talked about. There weren’t conferences on it. There weren’t a lot of books being written. There was no internet where people were engaging over it.”
As the author of numerous books and articles, and as a speaker at conferences around the world, Harvey is on the forefront of engaging church planters and building leaders in the ministry. He’s dedicated himself to the concept of healthy plurality leadership, in which a team of elders each bring their own unique knowledge and gifts to the church to help it thrive.
Plurality in church planting
The concept of plurality doesn’t often come naturally to many church planters.
“Oftentimes church planters have to go it alone,” Harvey said. “Sometimes they’ll have teams around them. Occasionally, they’ll have really strong leaders, or maybe even an elder or two, but what happens is a church planter can get very accustomed to doing ministry by himself and driving things by force of his own gifts.
“He has to move to a place where he’s ultimately able to train up elders and place the responsibility and the authority for the church into not just one man, but into a group of men. That becomes something of a defining moment for him, because he’s so accustomed to doing things on his own.”
Seeking a partnership in church planting
Through his work with Great Commission Collective, Harvey helps church planters work toward that plurality of leadership. They offer assessments, training and residencies that provide exposure to the ministry before the church planter begins serving in the ministry.
“They can have some evaluation of their preaching prior to having to preach every week,” Harvey said. “I’d encourage them to think not only about the local church, but to think about what group they want to be connected with in partnership, that can help them plant the church and move forward. Not only are they able to plant in strength, but they can have people around them who are committed to helping them last long in their leadership.”
For more from Reverend Harvey on the challenges of church planting, watch our four-part video from The Focused Pastor. Each week through the month of July, Harvey will dive into these challenges and offer solutions church planters need to help them avoid these pitfalls.
The post Dave Harvey on the Challenges and Evolution of Church Planting, and the Concept of Plurality appeared first on Focus on the Family.
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