The Competent Church Planting Pastor in Southern Baptist Convention Churches: A Mixed Method Study

Abstract

There is a strong and growing emphasis on church planting in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Simultaneously, church membership, attendance, and baptism are on the decline. The increase in church planting and the need for church revitalization have become the focus of much of SBC life. A sizable amount of the training and education available in church revitalization and planting is anecdotal. To date, there has not been a qualitative or quantitative study describing the similarities and differences between pastoral leadership in church planting and church revitalization.

This research project seeks to develop a competency model for effective pastoral leadership in church planting that can be used to compare church revitalization leadership in SBC churches. Chapter 1 identifies the relative terms associated with church planting, church revitalization, and competency studies. Also in chapter 1, a bridge is created from the work of Joseph Hudson’s 2017 competency study of church revitalization pastors. Chapter 2 discusses the need for a greater evangelical presence in the US through church planting and revitalization. Next, a comparison is made between the shared competencies in knowledge, skills, and traits of church planting pastors and church revitalization pastors. The literature reveals the potential for significant similarities in leadership competencies required for church revitalization and church planting.

Chapter 3 describes the steps taken to evaluate the following categories of church planter competencies: traits, motives, self-concepts, knowledge, and skills. Then, in chapter 4, the findings of the five categories measured in chapter 3 are used to establish a church planting competency model. Finally, in chapter 5, a concluding comparison is derived between church revitalization leadership and church planting leadership based on the quantitative and qualitative data from the current study and Hudson’s 2017 study. One of the end goals of this thesis is to provide a greater understanding of successful pastoral leadership for church plants and church revitalizations that will better inform training curriculum and pastoral preparation in SBC seminaries and at the North American Mission Board.