Four Challenges New Churches Face, and Why the Order Matters

Noah Oldham surveyed more than 700 church planters for NewChurches.com and found four challenges behind nearly two-thirds of their struggles: meeting space, committed leaders, financial sustainability, and evangelistic reach. His counsel on how the four interlock runs against instinct.

Don't spend tomorrow's mission on today's image.

A building can't compensate for the absence of a missionary strategy.

— Noah Oldham, via NewChurches.com

Small-town Iowa is short on meeting space and most of our core teams are small, which are exactly the constraints Oldham describes. That makes the order of operations matter here more than almost anywhere. Get the sequence right before you sign anything.