On January 1, 2023, Chris Vogel assumed the position of church planting and vitality coordinator for Mission to North America (MNA). According to Vogel, the last two words in that job title are essential to the work he will be doing.

“My job,” said Vogel, “is not just to get the numbers up.” Rather, Vogel sees the mission of MNA as working with presbyteries to establish and support healthy, vital churches that will then plant thriving churches.

Vogel brings a wealth of experience in church planting as well as a passion for training and mentoring pastors to the new job. While a Ph.D. student at Marquette University, Vogel assisted with a church plant on the east side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1992, he set aside work on his dissertation to plant a church in Waukesha, a western suburb of Milwaukee. There, he served for 26 years as senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in Waukesha (which later moved to Delafield, Wisconsin). Vogel was actively involved in church planting and credentialing in the Northern Illinois Presbytery and continued this work in the Wisconsin Presbytery that was formed in 2005.

In 2017, Vogel became the director of the On Wisconsin Network, a PCA-led church planting movement. The network developed out of a need to recruit and develop church planters committed to the state; as of 2010, there were only six PCA churches there; a new one hadn’t been formed since 1995. He notes that all too often, once pastoral candidates leave the state for seminary training, they never return.

Vogel sees the mission of MNA as working with presbyteries to establish and support healthy, vital churches that will then plant thriving churches.

The situation in Wisconsin is not unique. At the Church Planting Summit hosted by MNA and Covenant Seminary in fall 2022, speakers noted that throughout the country, there are people and groups that the PCA hasn’t reached successfully.  

Out of his work with the On Wisconsin Network, Vogel developed the first NXTGEN Pastors group — a cohort that has grown from four students to 25 in the past five years. 

In 2018, Vogel stepped down from his role as senior pastor to broaden the scope of NXTGEN and establish mentoring cohorts in other regions of the country. To date, NXTGEN Pastors has trained more than 150 mentors among 40 cohorts in North America with a reach beginning to expand overseas.

Vogel brings his commitment to training and mentoring the next generation of pastors to his new job, hoping, ultimately, to establish healthy, flourishing churches.

Which begs the question: What does a vital church look like?

Characteristics of a Healthy Church

According to Vogel, there are five crucial elements that contribute to a church’s vitality:

1. Prayer – While every church would likely identify prayer as a necessary element of its work and worship, we all suspect we could be doing better.
2. Evangelism – Are we empowering members to engage the surrounding community?
3. Diversity – Who in the community is not being reached? What are some ways we can broaden diversity within our congregation?
4. Lay mobilization – Are pastoral and church staff doing all the work, or are men and women in the church serving in appropriate ways?
5. Sense of kingdom engagement – Beyond meeting the needs of our own congregation, how are we cultivating a sense of kingdom purpose and vision?

While admitting that no church will exemplify these characteristics perfectly, Vogel poses the question, “What is your plan to address these issues in order to cultivate a sense of flourishing?”

And, as a practical matter, how can presbyteries help promote this type of vitality?

According to Vogel, one way to foster the development of healthy churches is by viewing the presbytery from the framework of an ecosystem.

Considering the Presbytery as Ecosystem

In simplest terms, ecosystems theory borrows language from the field of biology. It suggests that each of the elements of a system contributes to the overall health of the whole. For example, the health of a pond is contingent upon the interaction of multiple factors including plant life, animals, microorganisms, weather, and landscape. 

Similarly, multiple factors will either contribute to or diminish the overall health and flourishing of churches. Viewing the presbytery as an ecosystem enables church leaders to identify what is working and what isn’t. For example, are pastors healthy? Are marriages and families strong? What elements of the community are either promoting or impeding growth and vitality?

As his first order of business in this new role, Vogel is committed to seeking the Lord first through prayer. Beginning in January, Vogel established several prayer groups meeting for a half-hour every other week. The purpose of these groups is to hear about what is happening within presbyteries, find out what they’re doing currently, and pray for discernment moving forward.

“None of this matters if the Lord is not in it,” said Vogel.

Creating a Pipeline

Next, as church planting and vitality coordinator, one of Vogel’s major tasks will be to develop a long-range plan for producing a pipeline of church planting leaders. He notes that one of the first items on his agenda will be connecting with presbytery and network leaders to get them thinking about creating such pipelines.

“If we want to plant churches, we need to develop church planters. No one comes ready-made to be a church planter or pastor,” said Vogel.

Vogel cites a 2016 Barna study on Common Experiences of Pastoral Calling, which found that 50% of all Protestant pastors sense a call to pastoral work when they are between the ages of 14 and 21. Yet, pastoral training often doesn’t begin in earnest until a potential candidate finishes college or seminary.

According to Vogel, it’s essential for presbyteries to push that pipeline further back, helping to cast a vision for those called to gospel ministry. In addition, while acknowledging the vital role seminary training provides in preparing candidates academically and theologically, Vogel emphasizes the need to address the development of the whole person.

Cultivating Pastoral Health

In his work with NXTGEN, Vogel relied on the book “Resilient Ministry” that identified a slate of soft skills essential in promoting health among pastors and pastoral candidates. These skills involve attending to spiritual formation, soul care, emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, concerns about marriage and family in ministry, and leadership and management skills.

Vogel notes that while seminaries provide needed theological and practical skills, a mentoring relationship is better suited to the purpose of helping pastors develop these types of skills.

Further, suggests Vogel, it’s worth considering the burden pastors experience when shouldering the demands of a congregation in isolation.

“Our terms for a pastor, such as shepherd, preacher, and evangelist are often of a solo worker, separated from the sheep, the congregants, and the lost. However, in the Bible, the servants of God’s people are often depicted as working with others. Pastoral health is always lived out in community. Cohorts are an excellent avenue for community. Cohorts provide the time and space on a regular basis for self-examination and a pattern of engagement in a community.”

Caring for Churches Denomination-wide

While his job title emphasizes the important work of church planting, Vogel is quick to point out that a focus on vitality will benefit all churches within the PCA.

“Historically,” said Vogel, “when we bifurcate planting and vitality, we do a disservice to everyone.” He says that when we emphasize planting to the exclusion of existing churches, we miscommunicate to established churches that we don’t care about you. Our goal is to take care of the whole system — whether a church has been here for 50 years, 10 years, or one year — with this: “We are here for you. MNA has 25 different ministries that exist to serve you. Vitality is enhanced as those ministries are engaged to advance the kingdom.”