Church Planting: Summer Camp, Flying Unicorns, and Saul’s Armor

By Laura Tarro, church planter at Bethany Covenant Church in St. Charles, Illinois

I grew up attending summer camp each year. At summer camp, I usually started with a group of strangers who, by the end of our time together, had become some of my closest friends. I never wanted those summers to end. Summer camp has become a shorthand I use to describe any gathering of people with whom I quickly develop a close affinity. Recently I had a particularly poignant summer camp type experience at a retreat for church planters.

Lake Tawakoni

We stayed at Lake Tawakoni’s Pastor Retreat, about an hour outside of Dallas. It was the first time this retreat center had ever hosted a co-ed group of male and female pastors. It was like summer camp for church planters. There was jet skiing, fishing, kayaking, ax throwing, lounging, campfires, good food, good conversation, and good friends. The focus of our time was on rest and refreshment. They told us the time was for us to slow down and breathe. They invited a spiritual director and told us our only scheduled time would be to talk about our pressure points in ministry and to pray for one another.

My husband and I flew in a day early and met up with my friend Danielle and her husband. Danielle is a church planter and lead pastor at Resilience Church in Lakewood, Colorado. We met at a conference for women in ministry a year ago and became fast friends. The four of us had about a day together exploring the quaint downtown area of Grapevine, Texas before we traveled to the retreat center. It was during our walk around town that I spotted an ornament of a flying unicorn on top of a turret attached to one of the buildings. I pointed out the flying unicorn because I often say that female lead pastors are incredibly rare and female church planters are basically unicorns. The flying unicorn is our mascot.

A flying unicorn ornament on top of a building in Grapevine, Texas

I met Danielle and another female church planter named Valarie about a year ago at a conference called “Half the Church” in New York City. Valarie pastors Radiant Church in Savannah, Georgia. The three of us connected with several other women church planters, lead pastors, and seminary students at that conference and many of them became good friends. After the conference, we began a monthly Zoom call. Those meetings have become a vital support network. They help us feel less alone. We may feel like flying unicorns in a lot of spaces, but each month we share areas of growth and places we need prayer. When we gather, we don’t need to explain our back story because all our stories are so similar. We are a community of flying unicorns. We have found our people.

Me, Danielle, and Valarie at “Half the Church” in NYC in March 2022

Danielle and I were excited about the pastors retreat in Texas because Valarie was also able to join us. We were thrilled to be together in person. The retreat was organized by Mosaic Collective, which is a group for church planters that have not always fit well into other church planting systems. They have made it a point to create a space for planters who are women and planters who are people of color. Several of the church planters were from the Evangelical Covenant Church (my denomination), about half were people I already knew, the other half quickly became friends. We told stories. We laughed. We prayed for each other. We ate a lot of food!

A really great group of church planters and our hosts

If summer camp is shorthand for a gathering of people who immediately understand you, this church planter retreat was exactly that. There is something important about being with people who understand the challenges you face in systems that sometimes feel like they were built for other people. We serve in very different communities, we are at different stages in the process, but we also share a lot in common.

Sometimes, when I think about typical church planting methods, I think of a young shepherd boy named David trying to put on King Saul’s armor to face the Philistine champion Goliath. King Saul’s armor was built for King Saul. It fit him well. It properly equipped him for what he needed to do, but it was not a good fit for David’s calling. David tried for a while to put on Saul’s armor until he finally said, “I cannot go in these . . . because I am not used to them” (1 Samuel 17:39). David took off Saul’s armor and picked up the tools he knew because he used them on a regular basis: his shepherd’s staff, five smooth stones, and a slingshot.

There might be moments in ministry when you feel like your call makes you a bit of a flying unicorn, or a young shepherd with a slingshot. Others may think you are ill-equipped for the task. They may try to fit you with armor that was clearly made for someone else. The tools that work for others may not work for you. This does not disqualify you for God’s call. You may not fit well into existing structures. It may take longer for you to find people who will support you and resource your ministry. Keep going. If God has called you to the task, God will equip you to do it. There is a good chance God has already given you the tools you need. They might be the tools you already use on a regular basis.

After our time together at Lake Tawakoni, we drove to the airport. It felt like the end of summer camp. We went our separate ways and returned to the places we serve in ministry. We picked up the tools we know how to use because we use them on a regular basis. We felt a little less like flying unicorns because we’ve been reminded that, though we might be unusual, we are not alone.