Church Planting: Are You Ready to Take the Leap?
When I first met Dave (David Scholes) he had long hair, a thick northern accent, and he played guitar quite proficiently. We had both moved from England to attend Bible College in Sydney Australia and we spent three of our younger years studying together. He met his now wife Mel at the same college and they moved back to Preston.
We have all been in ministry in different positions and contexts ever since. But in the last year or two Dave and Mel (along with others) have taken the courageous step to plant Veritas Church in Preston. Church planting is not for the weak, but it’s also an incredible opportunity to have a fresh expression of what church can be like; a blank canvas ready to be painted with God-colours.
I recently sat down with Dave over video-chat (when all of our children had gone to bed) and talked about the Bible, the challenges and rewards of church planting, as well as any advice he would give to those considering it.
Interviewing Dave Scholes from Veritas Church in Preston
James: What’s your favourite translation of the Bible and why?
Dave: My favourite translation is the English Standard Version (ESV). It was only published for the first time in 2002, so it’s a recent translation. The study notes were really extensive and thorough and were written by some great scholars when it first came out in the ESV Study Bible. Initially, it was because of that; the scholarship behind the study Bible side of things. As I’ve explored more about why you should pick a translation, I prefer a more literal translation.
Every word has come from the mouth of God. I think it’s important to know every word and not every thought that proceeds from the mouth of God. Obviously, there are many interpretations of the words and how they’re put together, but I want to read the closest translation possible.
James: If you could meet one biblical person, who would it be and what would you ask them?
Dave: It would be Paul for sure; I’m assuming Jesus is off the table on this one? (yes!). There are many people I’d love to meet, including Peter, James the brother of Jesus, or any of the Apostles. But if I had to ask Paul one question, I’d ask him to settle the baptism debate once and for all. Paedobaptism or Credobaptism? Which is right. I’d also want him to weigh in on major debates in church history, like Calvinism versus Arminianism.
James: Why did you plant a church?
Dave: Several reasons, but I think it’s helpful to know how we were in the position in the first place to even ask the question; Should we? There were certain positions theologically that we’d come to that were no longer compatible with our old church and denomination. There were certain things we disagreed with and they shifted in one direction and we shifted in the other away from each other. So, we didn’t stay still, and they moved, and they didn’t stay still, and we moved. We didn’t leave with the intention to start a church. I was paid on staff. I was the associate pastor, full-time salary. We left all that behind and then took some time to go, right, what is it that we do believe?
Who are we? What are our convictions? We genuinely explored that for a few months. After maybe four months of having left that church and my role, me and a friend were talking about all this stuff, and we started exploring together who should plant a church and basically, are we qualified?
We thought there were legs to that idea of planting and kept exploring it. We got the commitment of seven adults and six children (the children didn’t have a choice to start the church). We explored friendship with the International Presbyterian Church and got some advice and wisdom from them. We discovered there wasn’t a single Presbyterian church in Preston, which is the city where we live.
Another major reason for planting was the fight for the restoration of family worship. Genuine household worship and discipleship, catechizing children, teaching children the faith in an intentional and robust way, genuinely worshipping as a family, genuinely praying as a family; not just praying before bed and that’s it, but genuinely living like Christians all the time and putting the impetus on parents to take that really seriously. That’s what we felt God placed on our hearts to pursue. We felt there was a permission there under God to do these things. We felt that’s what obedience required.
Another major reason for planting was the fight for the restoration of family worship. Genuine household worship and discipleship, catechizing children, teaching children the faith in an intentional and robust way, genuinely worshipping as a family, genuinely praying as a family.
What’s the story behind the name Veritas Church?
Dave: Right. The name is a Latin word. I’m sure you know it means truth. Now, we don’t think for one minute that we are the true church or that we have a monopoly on the truth. That’s not what it was about – it sounds like a really arrogant name.
So, why did we go for it? A few reasons. Jesus called himself the truth (John 14:6). We want to be all about Jesus. The Bible is our absolute standard and source of truth, breathed out by our truthful God. That’s what we wanted to be about too. Culturally, in our current moment, there’s a war over truth. I think most people now grow up being taught that truth is largely subjective; what’s true for you can be true for you, and what’s true for me can be true for me, particularly when it comes to religious, moral, or aesthetic claims. We wanted to make a prophetic stand, for lack of a better word, against that folly. We wanted to proclaim that there is such a thing as truth. His name is Jesus. It’s the truth that sets free, not subjectivism.
Although truth isn’t the only thing that’s important—Jesus says faith, hope, and love remain, and love is the greatest; we could have called ourselves Love Church. But that’s been done in various ways. My question is: how do I know that’s true? Without a foundation of truth, and truth claims an authoritative source of truth, we don’t know those things are true. We can’t trust that they’re true—they’re just ideas unless you believe in the truth.
Lastly, Trinity Church was already taken. There are a lot of churches in Preston—Trinity Church, Christ Church, Grace Church, Covenant Church, Emmanuel Church. They were all gone. We also needed a website domain that wasn’t already taken.
James: What’s your vision for the church?
Dave: I’m not a vision statement guy. So, we didn’t try to come up with a vision statement. We have maybe what could be argued is a mission statement. We used to say, “Oh, the whole gospel for the whole of Preston.” Really simple. I would just say we just want to be a biblical church. Done. Honestly, it’s that simple for me. If you genuinely love God, if you genuinely want to follow what He says, you’ll do evangelism. You’ll worship. You’ll disciple. You ought to be an obedient church. And by doing it that way, by just saying, “We just want to be a biblical church,” I think it covers everything.
You can ask yourself; What makes you stand out from the other churches and so on? What makes you unique? What’s your unique selling point and all that sort of thing? Yeah. I think the danger of that is you end up overemphasising something that you’re passionate about and underemphasising a whole bunch of stuff that you’re not passionate about. So, if someone said, “I need a vision statement.” I’d say, go read the Westminster Confession of Faith. That’s our vision statement. That’s what we believe the church should be and do. That’s what we believe Christianity is in a summary.
What has surprised you most about planting a church?
Dave: What surprised us about planting a church? That people showed up. Genuinely, God’s been really kind. People turned up.
James: Did you think people wouldn’t turn up?
Dave: You end up going, this is either going to work or it’s not. When you’re feeling full of faith and you’re confident and you’re having a good day, then great, let’s do this thing. But that’s not the experience all the time. When people actually showed up, and new people showed up, and people turned up from another city and said, “We’re thinking of moving over here to join your church,” that’s something. I was like, I never expected that. But that’s what God’s been doing. We are not smart enough or interesting enough to make that happen.
James: What has been the hardest part of planting a church?
Dave: Genuinely, the hardest part for me has been to resist the temptation to control it. That’s honestly been the hardest part for me. It’s hard when you have a Sunday where seven people turn up. That’s hard. But that’s been the exception for us. We’ve not had too many of those things happen like that. That’s painful. That’s really difficult emotionally. When you’ve put everything into your sermon that week, you’re trying to communicate to the church that week, and then everyone’s on holiday or for various reasons, only a few of you are there.
The first sermon I preached at our church was Psalm 127: “Unless the Lord builds a house, the workers labour in vain.” And I said something along the lines of, if we can build this in our own strength, you really shouldn’t want to be here. If I can build this, if you can build this, if we can do this without God, you want nothing whatsoever to do with it.
James: What have you enjoyed the most about it?
Dave: I love to preach, so that’s been one thing. I’ve been able to preach every week, which I really enjoy. But I think actually what’s been the most enjoyable thing is genuinely seeing people take real steps in their discipleship. I had one couple, they don’t have kids, they both work from home, and they are catechising each other over their lunch breaks. So, they literally have a catechism, and they’re teaching each other the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
No one said they should do that or told them to do that. But we just encouraged them and taught them the importance, for example, of doctrine, discipleship, and catechism, particularly in the context of children. They said, “How are we going to catechise our children if we aren’t catechised?” I don’t want people to be put off by the word catechism or catechised. That just means learning.
There’s nothing shiny or exceptional about what we’re doing. We’re just doing those things and trusting that God’s going to bless the things He’s promised to bless. Again, it’s early days, but those have been the most enjoyable things I’ve seen happening.
James: What’s it like planting a church in Preston? What’s unique about it?
Dave: Yeah, so this is probably an area I’m weaker on—the whole social science behind church planting. The few things that I’ve observed about Preston, I’ve lived here more than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s not a place people go to; it’s a place people drive through. Preston was the first place that got a motorway in England. The M6 outside Preston was the first-ever stretch of motorway in the UK. But it’s just not a destination. No one comes here. A lot of people live here and work in Manchester or Liverpool.
Preston, though, is chock-full of churches—loads of churches, lots of bad churches. I don’t mind saying that. And by “bad churches,” I mean churches that have thrown out what it means to be a church. But because there are lots of churches, there are also lots of decent evangelical churches that preach the Bible, that preach Christ, and hold fast to the evangelical Christian faith. But the church attendance is tiny. I can’t remember what it was. About 3%, I think, of the whole city goes to church, but 50% would answer that they’re Christians on a census.
So, I think the main problem, which is probably the main problem in a lot of British cities is nominalism, nominal Christianity. So, we’re not here just to reach non-Christians, we’re here to reach people who think they’re Christians.
I think God's told us what he wants the church to do. Do those things, right? Don't worry about being clever.
What advice would you give someone thinking about church planting?
Dave: I think three things. The first thing is to really make sure you’re qualified biblically. So, I don’t mean you’re a great leader; I don’t mean you’re entrepreneurial. What’s interesting biblically is that those things aren’t in any list of qualifications. I think it really helps to be a good leader. I also think it probably helps to be entrepreneurial. I’m not sure how good a leader I am. I’m definitely not entrepreneurial. I was sort of forced into this through what I would say is God’s providence, but I think people who want to plant a church, the first question they should ask is, am I qualified according to scripture?
I think a deep dive into those qualifications would be beneficial. We don’t need any more churches led by unqualified people.
The second one would be, don’t do the journey on your own. Don’t be a maverick. We were. Although we couldn’t formally submit ourselves to a denomination because we obviously weren’t a part of one, we did ask godly church leaders, godly men, to advise us, challenge us, and so on. As we grow as a church, we’re actively looking at denominational affiliation.
I think the church needs to be accountable. The church leadership needs to be accountable. It’s not my church. It’s not mine. It’s not a business that I’m running. It’s Christ’s church. Who am I to think that I alone am so qualified to do it? No. God will raise up other people with whom I should steward the church. So don’t do it on your own.
Lastly, I would say simple commit to the means of grace… I think God’s told us what he wants the church to do. Do those things, right? Don’t worry about being clever.
I think churches should preach the word, administer the sacraments, pray, and follow through on biblical church discipline. I think these are what God has ordained the church to do. Why would we doubt that he wouldn’t bless those things? So, I would say just focus on those things. Yes, do the other stuff, do the events, do the activities, but don’t skip those steps.
James: How have you navigated your relationship with God while you’ve been doing this?
Dave: I think I’ve been challenged. There’s been times where I’ve realised I have a new level of responsibility here. I can’t be ill-disciplined with my devotions, my prayer life, my scripture reading, and my private devotional life. I can’t afford to be ill-disciplined with it. It’s certainly something I’ve grown in and will continue to grow in, but the extra responsibility has driven me to take that area of my life much more seriously. I’ve never studied more than I have now. That’s a good thing—to be in the Word more. I’ve never prayed more now because, again, I’m having to take my hand off the rudder, not control things, which means I’m saying, “Okay, please, Lord, I’m not controlling it, so You need to do something.” But again, because if God isn’t doing it, we’re toast.
James: That’s good. It’s faith, isn’t it? It’s being able to step back and just have faith that God’s all over it.
Dave: Yes, absolutely and prayerlessness is faithlessness because prayerlessness is saying I don’t need God. Prayerlessness is ‘I can control this’ but prayer is asking God to work and I’m trusting Him.
James: How can we pray for you and Veritas Church?
Dave: One, that we would be faithful to what we set out to do, which is to be a church of the truth—to be faithful to the Word. Pray that we would stay true to that. Secondly, practically, that God would add to our number. We do want to reach people with the gospel and see more people encounter the truth that sets us free. Thirdly, that God would raise up faithful and qualified elders to help us do that. Fourthly, that we would very practically have wisdom in pursuing denominational membership and affiliation. That’s our next big practical step as a church—joining a denomination. We have two or three different options open to us, and we are working through some of the details of belief and practice to figure out which one we best align with going forward long term.
Final Reflections
I hope you’ll join me in praying for Dave and Mel, as well as everyone at Veritas Church. They have all embarked on a great journey of starting a new faith community in Preston. What struck me when talking to Dave is that God has given him conviction and vision around what a church community should look like and how family worship is paramount to that. They are not pretending to have all the answers, but they’re willing to give it a go and submit to Gods leading in it.
If you’d like to find out more about Veritas Church and their journey, you can visit veritaschurch.co.uk or follow them on Instagram @veritaschurchuk.