How Do I Start a Church With No Money?

Yes, a lot of people ask this question, and I believe a lot of people are in this shoe, looking for relevant answers to a question like this. So let me just answer it as the Holy Spirit leads me and from practical experience.

If you know you are called into ministry and God has called you to start a church of your own, you first have to be sure that God has actually called you to start a church of your own. Because being in ministry is different from starting a church.

Starting a church means you are going to have people under your pastoral care. And anywhere people are involved, you know their activities will be involved. You have to care for them, you have to nurture them, you have to be patient with them, you have to understand people… all of that comes with starting a church.

But before we even get to the people aspect, if you want to start a church and you don’t have money, what do you have?

You have to have an anointed vessel of God. You have to know that God is using you. You pray for people and people are seeing results. People can see the hand of God upon your life. Because if you are starting a church, especially when you don’t have money, what are people coming to meet?

They are coming to meet what God has put inside you.

And then, you have to understand the practical side of starting a church. Because ministry is spiritual, but starting a church also has practical things attached to it. You need somewhere to meet.

Even if you say, “Okay, I will use my parlour,” that’s fine, but you need to consider where you live. Are you going to have people coming into the house every week? Are you going to disturb your neighbours? Are people going to be shouting and praying and the whole place will be noisy? It depends on where you are living. If you are living somewhere where even when people are talking normally the neighbours can hear everything, you need to think about these things.

So you need wisdom.

And before you start a church with no money, I believe you should have been planted in a church first. You can’t just wake up one morning and say, “I want to start a church,” when you have not really been under anybody, you have not served, you have not learned, you have not experienced what it means to work with people in a church.

There should be a church where you are going, where you are serving, where you are learning.

Then, if you believe God is leading you towards starting something, you can start small. You can start maybe a prayer meeting or a small Bible study, maybe once a week. It doesn’t have to start on Sunday.

You get what I’m saying?

You can gather a few people for prayer. You can study the Word together. You can begin to build people. And you are not doing that to take members from the church where you are. No. That should not be the intention. You are simply starting something small and allowing it to grow.

Because God knows you don’t have money. He is not going to tell you to go and rent a massive hall tomorrow when He knows you don’t have the money to sustain it.

So you have to apply wisdom and, yes, common sense in these things. Everything is not, “God said, so I must do it immediately.” Sometimes, God is leading you, but you still have to use wisdom in how you carry out what He is telling you.

And please… don’t become a money monger because you want to start a church.

Don’t start begging everybody for money. Don’t make money the first message of your ministry. If the first thing people know about your new ministry is that you are always asking them for money to do one thing or another, you are already creating the wrong foundation.

Start with what you have. Start with the people you have. Start with the grace God has given you. Pray. Teach the Word. Build people. Serve people.

And as the ministry grows, the resources and capacity to do more can also grow.

You don’t need to look like a big church on your first day.

Start where you are, but make sure what you are starting is actually what God has called you to build.