Twenty years ago, Tim Keller called the church to plant new congregations. The next call is here.
In February 2002, Tim Keller wrote a short article called ”Why Plant Churches.” The lead sentence was a thunderclap. The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations, he argued, is the single most crucial strategy for the growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and for the renewal of the existing churches in it.
The response from many established pastors wasn’t great. We already have plenty of churches. New plants will compete with existing churches for the same people.
Two decades of data have proven Keller right.
We are now in another moment of similar weight. And I contend that empowering entrepreneurial believers is the single most crucial strategy for reaching our communities, planting new churches, and renewing existing ones.
By entrepreneur I don’t mean a business founder, though some are. I mean the broader definition of that term, someone who sees a need and takes responsibility for meeting it. Innovators. Builders. Everyday Missionaries.
In the Kingdom lens, an entrepreneur is the ordinary believer who takes their part in the mission seriously. Who doesn’t just invite people to attend church but takes the good news of Jesus to the streets. Some run businesses. Some start nonprofits. Some are digital creators. All of them are loving and serving their neighbors, helping make right the wrongs of the world in the name of Jesus.
This is not a call to throw out what has already been built. Keep gathering for worship. Keep training pastors. And inspire and empower the everyday believer. Adapt how we form our people. Expect them to do more than volunteer at church events. Empower them to be movement makers in their own circles and communities.
Why Plant Entrepreneurs: Three Reasons
1. The American church needs a new front line.
The numbers are sobering. Exponential’s own research with Lifeway has found that most church growth happens through transfer growth, not new believers. Even church plants, which reach the unchurched at higher rates than established churches, see that reach drop sharply after their first five to seven years.
Exponential’s stated mission is to see 16% of U.S. churches become reproducing or multiplying. That’s the tipping point. We are nowhere near it. We are running out of pulpits that move people. But, we have not run out of people. They are in coffee shops, on apps, in workplaces, in neighborhoods where the institution of the church has little to no presence. Entrepreneurial followers of Jesus are the key.
2. The pulpit has moved.
Ask a kid born after the year 2000 what they want to be when they grow up, and the answer has changed. For four generations in a row, the top of the list held steady: doctor, lawyer, teacher, executive. Around the turn of the century, the list flipped. Today’s kids name creators, influencers, streamers, entrepreneurs. That is a momentous shift! The old list shared a feature the new one doesn’t: positional authority. Today, just because someone has a title doesn’t mean they’re respected. Just because a pastor has a pulpit doesn’t mean people are listening. The lens through which most people now see Jesus is not the positional leader. It’s the everyday follower. Every single follower of Jesus is now a living pulpit.
3. Scriptural Mandate.
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9, ESV)
Peter wasn’t writing to professional clergy. He was writing to ordinary believers scattered across the Roman empire. Slaves. Tradesmen. Mothers. Soldiers. He told all of them they were a royal priesthood. Every one of them was sent.
We are the priesthood. Our lives are the pulpit.
A Tale of Two Sanctuaries
When I’m in a typical suburban American church and I ask the congregation, “Who here is called to full-time ministry?” almost always, most people point to the people on the platform.
When I ask the same question in an immigrant church, especially in an African or South American congregation, every hand in the room goes up.
Every hand.
The American church has built a church culture that quietly teaches people that ministry is what happens in the building, performed by the credentialed, supported by the rest. The credentialed have done extraordinary work. But the rest were never meant to be the support. They are called to be the front line.
What This Looks Like
We see this everyday in the LINC network.
In Sacramento, an entrepreneurial leader runs a mobile shower unit for the homeless. They offer physical cleansing and along the way lead people to spiritual newness.
In Milwaukee, a local leader runs homes for women coming out of sex trafficking. The living room is the pulpit. The first night of sleep without fear is a first taste of the gospel.
In San Francisco is a woman whose local park bench became a ministry to immigrants in her neighborhood. She started by learning names. Now she runs a ministry helping immigrants adjust to life in a new country, all in the name of Jesus.
All of them are reaching people that only they could.
You may not be called to change the world, but more than likely, you have been called to help change the world for one person.
This is exactly the moment Exponential’s forthcoming Entrepreneurial Church expression in The Atlas is built for. It names the shape of what these leaders are already doing, and gives pastors and networks a way to recognize, equip, and release them.
Empowering People: A Pastor’s Confession
When I was a local church pastor, I constantly heard from people about what we should do as a church. A ministry we should start. An outreach that should happen. Someone the church needed to serve. For a time, I tried to do what everyone was asking.
Then I realized I had it backwards. My job, given by God, was not to do what they were asking. It was to empower them to do it.
Four principles I’ve learned about empowering people::
Throw logs on their fire.
When you see a believer already lit up about a calling, your job is not to redirect them to your priorities. It’s to add fuel. Bring resources, connections, encouragement. Most God-stirred ideas die not because they were wrong but because no one threw a log of encouragement on the fire.
What you water grows.
Attention is fertilizer. The ministries, leaders, and dreams you give your attention to will grow. The ones you ignore will wither. Pastors and leaders water the wrong things by accident all the time, watering compliance instead of conviction, attendance instead of mission. Pay attention to what you want to see more of. What you celebrate will replicate!
Let them try, fail, and try again.
Real empowerment means I will stand with you when the first version of this doesn’t work, and the second, and we’ll learn together until you find the version that does. It means not fixing it for them but walking with them as they learn and relearn along the way. It means giving them room to try and fail, and try again.
Their calling, their place.
The point of empowerment is to release each believer to live out the mission in the unique way and place they are called to do it. The shower unit, the safe house, the park bench: none of those were on anyone’s strategic plan. But, they were on God’s!
Here’s How to Be an Entrepreneurial, Empowering Community
For pastors and church leaders ready to make the shift:
- Stop being the answer. Start being the equipper. When someone brings you a ministry idea, your first instinct should not be “the church should do that” but “you could try that, and here’s how we will empower you.”
- Identify the entrepreneurs already in your pews. They are there. They run businesses, raise families, build things. Ask them what God has put on their heart. Then water it.
- Redefine “full-time ministry.” In every sermon, every membership class, every baptism. Until every hand in your sanctuary goes up when the question is asked.
- Build the equipping pipeline. The leaders carrying the mission outside the building need at least as much investment as the ones inside it. Want help doing this, shoot me a message. I’d love to share resources and connections to others who are living it out.
- Celebrate the wins outside the walls. Tell the stories. The shower unit, the safe house, the park bench. What you celebrate, will replicate.
The creators, entrepreneurs and influencers have a place, a crucially important one.
Keller asked us to plant churches. I believe that the same Spirit is asking us, now, to plant entrepreneurs.
Let’s go. With Jesus!
Sources
- Timothy Keller, “Why Plant Churches,” Redeemer Presbyterian Church, February 2002, https://redeemercitytocity.com/articles-stories/why-plant-churches.
- Thom Rainer, “Major New Research on Declining, Plateaued, and Growing Churches from Exponential and LifeWay Research,” Church Answers, February 2020, https://churchanswers.com/blog/major-new-research-on-declining-plateaued-and-growing-churches-from-exponential-and-lifeway-research/.
- Exponential, “About / The 16% Mission,” accessed May 2026, https://exponential.org/about/.
- Outreach Magazine, “Beyond Numerical Growth,” citing conversion growth research showing only 3–5% of U.S. churches grow primarily through conversion, accessed May 2026, https://outreachmagazine.com/features/77707-beyond-numerical-growth.html.
- Lifeway Research and Exponential, “Half of Churches Experiencing Post-Pandemic Attendance Growth,” March 2025, https://news.lifeway.com/2025/03/18/half-of-churches-experiencing-post-pandemic-attendance-growth/.
- Tony Lambert, “As For Me and My House,” Christianity Today, August 2008, https://www.christianitytoday.com/2008/08/house-church-movement-china-persecution-christian/.
- Advertising Week, “Shifts in Career Aspirations and Higher Education,” accessed May 2026, https://advertisingweek.com/shifts-in-career-aspirations-and-higher-education-how-gen-zs-path-has-been-impacted-by-social-media/.
- Morning Consult, “Gen Zers Still Really Want to Be Influencers,” accessed May 2026, https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/gen-z-interest-influencer-marketing.
- Fortune, “Gen Alpha Is Snubbing the Careers Boomers Dreamed About,” accessed May 2026, https://fortune.com/article/gen-alpha-dream-careers-youtuber-influencer-social-media/.
- Fast Company, “Gen Alpha’s Dream Job Is YouTube Content Creator,” accessed May 2026, https://www.fastcompany.com/91285945/gen-alpha-dream-job-youtube-content-creator.
- “Career Aspirations of Generation Z in the Digital Age,” ResearchGate, accessed May 2026, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384896513.
