The Church Planter’s Community

For church planters doing the real work. Stories from the field, honest conversation, and a community that doesn’t sugarcoat it.

Church planting is harder than most people say out loud.

The kind where Sunday comes every seven days regardless of how your week went. The kind where you’re carrying your congregation, your family, your own doubts, and sometimes a full-time job alongside all of it.

This community exists for that planter.

What this is

The Church Planters Community is a gathering place for people doing the real work of church planting, and for the people who serve them.

It started with a Facebook group of over 3,600 church planters that a friend spent years building up. I have been trusted to help carry it forward.

This Substack is the content home for that community. A place for honest writing, field stories, and conversation that takes the cost of this work seriously.

It’s also home to The Church Planter’s Podcast.

The Podcast

Every episode, I’ll sit with one of two kinds of guests.

The first kind I call field conversations. These are active planters. People on the ground, in real places, doing the real thing. I want to know what their weeks actually look like. What they got wrong. Who they call when things fall apart.

The second kind I call ecosystem conversations. These are the people who serve planters: network leaders, trainers, counselors, coaches. People who see what planters can’t always see from inside their own situation.

Every episode will end the same way. I’ll ask every guest the same question:

“For the planter listening right now: what’s the word or phrase you would leave them as encouragement, and why?”

Real conversation. The kind that takes the weight of this work seriously.

Who I am

My name is Macho Lara. I’m a bi-vocational church planter. My wife Erica and I co-lead The Table NYC, a small church plant in New York. By day I’m a Lead IT Instructor. I also have MS, which shapes how I think about capacity, sustainability, and what it actually costs to keep doing this long term.

I’m not speaking to you from the other side of success. I’m in the middle of the same thing you’re in.

Who this is for

This community is for the planter who is six months in and already running low.

It’s for the bi-vocational leader carrying two full lives simultaneously.
For the planter in year three who is quieter about their doubts than they used to be.
For the person who loves the work and is tired at the same time.

It’s also for the people who support planters: coaches, counselors, network staff who want to understand the ground-level reality of what planters carry.

If you want depth without spectacle, you’re in the right place.

Subscribe

New posts will go out regularly. Once the podcast goes live, episodes will drop every two weeks.

And if you want to join us, come find The Church Planter’s Community on Facebook.

Glad you’re here.

-Macho