Church Planter or Pastor?

So when does a church planter turn into a pastor?

This weekend we traveled to the Springfield area for one last motorcycle trip before the weather turns cold. We rode into Arkansas on Saturday and ended up in Ozark, Missouri for the night. I wanted to attend church on Sunday, so prior to the trip I looked up a church planter’s website for Springfield to see if there was a new church that we could attend. There happened to be a church adjacent to the hotel that was listed as a new church on the church planter’s website. So that was the church we attended.

The service was good, the music was good, the preaching was good and there were a significantly higher percentage of friendly people at the service as compared to a ‘normal’ church. This church has been in existence for three years, they have their own building, two services on Sundays and they are in the process of paying off a loan for land they are planning on moving to someday. Since I am thinking that someday I will be planting a church, I noticed many things that I liked about the church that I liked and I have filed them away in memory

Is this a new church? I guess the answer would be yes if you count it in years. But this church is mature in what they do. They are apparently healthy and progressing as a church. They did not seem to be in survival mode at all, they looked prosperous. I say the leader of the church as moved from being a church planter to being a pastor. It appears the listing of this pastor as a church planter on the church planting website represents a much broader definition of what a church planter than I hold. A few reasons could be the website that does not get updated or the owners of the website like to have as many church planters listed as possible. In any case, I would like to understand their definition of a church planter. Is it someone who has planted a church sometime in his life? Or is there an expiration date for church planters, a time when they turn into pastors. Is this false advertising on the part of the church planter’s website?