Joel Rainey, whom I've known for a few years now, has written a book called Planting Churches in the Real World. I wrote an endorsement for it, which appears on the front cover.

I think the angle of this book will be very helpful. Most of the books on church planting are written by guys who have planted mega-churches, which often leaves would-be planters thinking that theirs will be the next mega-church. But most new churches don't break 100 in average worship attendance until after the fourth year, and Joel writes his book with this majority group in mind.

The book is, on the one hand, a needed wake-up call to new church planters who approach the task with delusions of granduer. On the other hand, Joel is adamant that a new church can make a great Kingdom impact, whether it is made up of hundreds of people, or dozens of people. Both the extreme difficulties and the rich rewards of church planting are described through his own personal experience. He also speaks with candor to his own mistakes as a church planter (as I mentioned, I've known him for a while and he's quite stubborn.)

This is a great resource for anyone thinking about planting a church. It is available now from the publisher (www.missional-press.com). I also linked (above) to Barnes and Noble.