New Book Release: Church Planter, Second Edition
Editors Note: We’re pleased today to release a new and completely revised edition of Tony Merdia’s book Church Planter: Nine Essentials for Being Faithful and Effective. Below is an excerpt from the book’s preface to give you a taste of Tony’s heart and wisdom to equip healthy church planters. You can purchase the paperback and Kindle editions at Amazon.com. GCD offers a 50% discount on bulk orders of more than 20 copies when you order from our website.
9 Essentials for Being Faithful and Effective
I wrote this book to inspire church planters and to lay out in plain terms some essential traits for those called to start healthy, gospel-centered churches that multiply.
The first (obvious) thing to say is that a church planter must be a converted man. Old divines and church leaders, like Richard Baxter, have lamented that too many churches suffer from unregenerate leaders, who are “strangers to the effectual working of the gospel which they preach to others,” who “worship an unknown God, preach an unknown Christ, and pray through an unknown Spirit, recommending a state of holiness and communion with God, and a glory and a happiness which are all unknown.” Conversion matters! You can’t preach what you don’t know. You can’t multiply what you don’t possess. So if you’re reading this and you’re not a Christian, your first step is to repent and believe the gospel.
But beyond being a converted man, what are the other defining characteristics of a church planter?
Through research, conversations with numerous leaders, and through personal experience, I want to discuss nine essentials for faithful and effective church planters. These nine traits are basic, biblical topics. The topics themselves are not novel, but I do hope to give some fresh perspective, reflect on key biblical texts, and scatter some helpful applications and inspiring illustrations along the way. The discussion questions that follow are also important and hopefully helpful. The Send Network church-planting profile may also be used as a summary checklist for raising up church planters, or for someone exploring the work of church planting.
This book focuses on biblical convictions and leadership character which are utterly necessary for church leaders in general, and church-planting pastors in particular. These things matter not just for starting the work of church planting, but for continuing the work for years and years.
Some planters will be naturally stronger in certain areas, and weaker in others. That’s expected. The goal isn’t perfection, but growth. This book isn’t just a checklist—it’s a roadmap. It’s a tool for discernment, but also for development. If you’re sensing a call to plant, my encouragement to you is this: be honest, be teachable, and be submitted to your local church. Planting isn’t a solo sprint. It’s a team effort that requires clarity of calling, affirmed character, and visible fruit. These nine essentials can help surface that clarity. But even more, they can give direction for your journey. Because if you’re truly called, you’ll be growing for the rest of your life. Your preaching will deepen. Your leadership will stretch. Your theology will sharpen. Your love for the lost will expand. These are things we never graduate from.
So you could say the list in this book functions both as a standard and as a vision. In one sense, these qualities should be true of every man who plants a church. In another sense, they serve as an aspiration—something to grow into by the grace of God. The bar is high because the calling is serious.
But God equips those he calls. God has a history of using unexpected leaders to do unlikely things for undeserving people, so that he alone gets the glory for it!
Therefore, whether you’re a young man sensing a call, a pastor raising up planters, or a couple praying about your next step in kingdom work, my prayer is that this second edition of Church Planter will help you discern, clarify, and commit to the work with joyful perseverance.