Founding Pastors and Catalytic Church Planters

There are two kinds of church planters in the world today. There is the founding pastor kind and the catalytic kind. Here is the difference.

The founding pastor is a great church planter in his own right. The founding pastor ends up staying at the church he has been privileged to plant for the majority of all of his/ her ministerial career. The founding pastor is often heard to say "I want to serve this church, these people, and reach this community for the rest of my life." Rick Warren is a good example of the founding pastor.

The catalytic church planter is a great church planter in his own right. A catalytic church planter stays somewhere 3-7 years doing a god job getting the church going. After this time frame though they become bored, they have an itch, they seek something new. When this is recognized they move on to a new work. The best example of this is the apostle Paul who stayed in no one place very long.

Here is the moral to this story. One kind of planter is not better than the other though admittedly we could name 15 founding pastors to every 1 catalytic church planter because catalytic church planters do not get the same "press" as the able founding pastors. In addition, it is important for denominational and judicatory officials to recognize this wiring and help utilize this person whether they be founding or catalytic by putting them in the best position to make disciples of Jesus Christ.