Is church planting a “young man’s game”? We often hear that it is. Some might think, I’m too old to plant a church.
Perhaps this suggests that younger leaders have more energy to start something new, or that they connect better to unchurched people. Both might be true.
But young leaders make a lot of mistakes. They can lack perspective. They can be motivated by the wrong things, like setting out to prove something or to be known and praised.
In addition to the pressure of ministry, young leaders may also be newly married or have young children, and this season of life will make planting even more challenging in most cases. Moreover, some young planters haven’t yet experienced much suffering in life. Older pastors are usually better at sympathizing with wounded people, and providing skillful and gracious pastoral care for them.
So, are younger guys better suited for the hard grind of church planting? To help us consider this issue, we’ve invited an old man on the podcast. Today, I’m privileged to welcome my brother, friend, and mentor, the gray fox himself, Steve Timmis.
Steve is the CEO of Acts 29, and has been involved in church planting for a long time. He’s an elder at The Crowded House Church in Sheffield, where we recorded this podcast.
You can listen to this podcast episode here.
Free eBook by Tim Keller: ‘The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness’
Imagine a life where you don’t feel inadequate, easily offended, desperate to prove yourself, or endlessly preoccupied with how you look to others. Imagine relishing, not resenting, the success of others. Living this way isn’t far-fetched. It’s actually guaranteed to believers, as they learn to receive God’s approval, rather than striving to earn it.
In Tim Keller’s short ebook, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path To True Christian Joy, he explains how to overcome the toxic tendencies of our age一not by diluting biblical truth or denying our differences一but by rooting our identity in Christ.
TGC is offering this Keller resource for free, so you can discover the “blessed rest” that only self-forgetfulness brings.
