I used to be a church planter. Maybe I still am. I don’t know.

All I know is that the church I planted more than a decade ago is no longer a church “plant.” It is an established church with elders, staff, property, and long-term plans for disciple-making.

I am also no longer there. A little over a year ago, I was called to serve as a lead pastor of BLDG 28 Church in Clearwater, Florida. Meanwhile, the church I planted, HighView Church, has carried on—advancing its mission and continuing to make disciples in that community.

The truth is, I didn’t stop being a church planter when I left the church I planted. In many ways, the church had ceased to be a plant years before my departure. By year three, it was financially self-sustaining, with a functioning membership, a plurality of elders, deacons, and countless faithful ministry leaders.

From my front-row seat as a church planter, I was able to watch God work in powerful ways. What began with a core team of five people and $200 in support became a vibrant, healthy, gospel-centered church through one act of God’s grace after another.

My time as a church planter was the most faith-building season of my life.

My biggest regret? That I didn’t enjoy it more.

The Burden of Always Looking Ahead

Church planters are a rare breed. Distant cousins of the international missionary, they are (usually) very driven people. While not every church planter is entrepreneurial—that’s a tired stereotype—most possess a deep, internal drive to reach people and start new things. They can instinctively gather a group of people with the gospel and then build that group of people into a functioning, institutional reality we call a local church.

This is a wonderful and desperately needed calling and work. But with some of these “future-facing” gifts comes a shadow. Church planters can become prisoners of then.

“Then” is a mythical time in the future when the church finally becomes what you imagined it would be. The problem is that then never quite arrives. Like Tantalus from Greek mythology—forever reaching for food he would never be able to grasp—our desires always remain out of reach.

Recently, a young pastor exploring church planting asked me, “What’s one word you rarely use to describe church planters.” I blurted out “happy.”

Most church planters I know are joyful people. After all, joy is possible because we rest in Christ regardless of our circumstances. But happy? For me, at least, happiness as a church planter was often elusive because it was tied to arrival—to becoming some final version of the church that was never truly attainable.

Three Lessons I Wish I Had Learned Earlier

If I had it to do over again, here are three lessons I would tell myself.

1. Look Back More Often.

When you are wired to build what isn’t there yet, gratitude takes discipline.

Your eyes are trained on the gap between where the church is and where you believe God is taking it, and that gap never fully closes. So you have to deliberately turn around.

Look. Remember. Keep a record. Write down the name of every person who comes to faith in Christ, every leader God raised up, every month the bills somehow get paid.

I wish I had built a habit of rehearsing those mercies out loud from the beginning—in elders’ meetings, around the dinner table, on the drives home. Looking back is not nostalgia; it is how you store up evidence of God’s faithfulness for the next valley.

2. Don’t Despise the Day of Small Things.

Zechariah spoke these words to a discouraged remnant laying a foundation that seemed insignificant next to the temple they remembered from Solomon (Zech. 4:10). These words are just as relevant for church planters.

The small gathering in a living room, the awkward first baptism, the volunteer team held together with duct tape and prayer. These are not the embarrassing prelude to the real church. They are the real church. God delights to work in such a way that only He can get the credit.

If I had believed that more deeply, I would have spent less time apologizing for what we did not yet have and more time appreciating and thanking God for what was already right in front of me.

The “small” day was never small to God.

3. Remember Who the Church Belongs to.

Jesus said He would build His Church and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). I believed that. I preached it. But somewhere along the way, I began to live as though the outcome rested on my next decision, my next hire, or my next sermon series.

That is a heavy way to plant a church, and it is an unhappy way to live.

If Christ is the builder, then I am not the one holding it together. The church I kept straining to produce was never mine to build in the first place. It is His to build, in His time and by His grace.

So, church planter, be happy. Not later, when the vision finally arrives. Now, while the work is small, unfinished, and unmistakably His. Christ is building His church. You have the privilege of watching Him do it.