I recently came across an interesting blog post simply titled; Church Planting is Dead! I don’t know Kevin or anything beyond his bio, but he’s got some good points in the discussion on the ever changing face of church planting and kingdom expansion. I’ve done some time in the trenches of church planting so naturally I believe this subject should be a huge priority. Even in the established ministry here at The Crossings I’ve begun to lay the initial ground work for sending out planters and daughter churches. It’s a big deal.
In the post the Kevin notes various changes like the present phenomena of launching multiple campuses or sites by mega-churches opposed to planting autonomous churches. That subject is indeed another debate for another time. Here however, Kevin focused on individual people rather than on methods. His point being, in one sense, that every Christ follower can be involved in church planting. I agree with that assessment and would take the thought one step further. The key to really ushering in church multiplication and kingdom expansion is just going back to serious discipleship and not more machinery.
In other words, the best way to see churches planted all over the world is to focus more on growing disciples rather than actually planting. Contradiction? Maybe; until you look at the focus. The mainline machine is for a group of folks to partner with a church planting organization and say something like, “Wow, let’s go plant a church in some needy place like the Strip in Las Vegas.” That’s not a bad idea, but at the end of the day you just have one church which may or may not reproduce. If the sole goal is the plant, then the reproduction is terminal. On the other hand, when the chief focus is on discipleship, there is no end to exponential growth. The point is to grab a young man who is searching for God and called by God. Get that young man connected to God and then disciple him, help him grow to maturity, and then to help him realize and execute God’s vision for his life. A generation of mature and fully committed men and women of God will do far more than institutions of church planting no matter how strategic they are. I’m not saying we should ignore tools such as assessments that church planting organizations offer, but rather a change of focus. The greatest expression of church planting will only come when countless disciples of Christ are matured, encouraged, and sent out to reach the goals that God has placed in THEIR hearts. Can such a theory really work? Well, it did in the first century and at other powerful seasons of awakening and revival in the history of the Church. Jesus and the apostles didn’t set up church planting organizations, they made disciples who made disciples and thus churches were planted.
So why not take some time today to consider whom you might be able to encourage in your sphere of influence. Who do you know that just might be the next Billy Graham, D.L. Moody, Alexander Campbell or Charles Spurgeon in the making? What else would you add to the discussion of church planting evolution?
Good words Jim. I remember one leader telling me that what a “church really needed was a building program” so they would have a vision and grow. I’m not against a building program in and of itself, but if it is merely “used” to create momentum, then you can have a situation where people are constantly dependent upon others to tell them what to do. I believe that all churches should be growing numerically and thus requiring building programs of some sort, but not at the expense of boots on the ground discipleship. It seems, as you alluded to in your first comment, that much church growth today and over the past 20 to 30 years has had to do with simply getting folks into a building on Sunday morning and then we call that success. Really, all you need to accomplish that is a bunch of money and a hotter band than the church down the street. But real growth toward maturity where disciples are making disciples takes more time and energy. Maybe “balance” is a constructive word for this discussion. I totally get what you’re saying that in essence some pulpits have become consumerist instead of Biblical and Spirit driven. I also believe though that there is a time and place to make evangelistic application in the Sunday morning service. For me, “speaking the whole counsel” of God means that I try to set a table of both expository and some topical. Going back to OCC days (if you remember those) seems like JK Jones spoke of “preparing a banquet” by different types of preaching and sermons.
Possibly another key to the discussion is just the gift mix of ministers and other church leaders. Many times we attempt to put way too many hats on preachers. Some guys are more evangelistic and others are more teachers each according to his gift mix. In other words, simply by default, some pulpit will be more evangelistic and others more expository and teaching merely because of the gifting and temperament of the preacher. The challenge maybe to grab both.
Adding another thought to chew on. The gathering of believers for worship
was not intended to be an evangelistic tool. So in the change of intent, the
program design has evolved to favor things which are pleasing to man.
Telling others about Jesus and growing disciples is challenging. Building an organizational structure to do it for me (poorly if I may add) is much easier
on the effort and conscience if I should choose to remain silent to that call.
Agreed. A collective of Jesus’ disciples will be the church but a church will not necessarily be a collective of Jesus’ disciples. Some of the recurring questions I was asked when we were ramping up to launch Brazos were “Have you purchased land?” “Have you purchased a building?” All of the questions revolved around the creation of the machine. “Build it and they will come” is a great motto for a fictitious baseball field in a movie and for creating an organization designed to collect people but falls horribly short in spreading the kingdom of God. So the answers to all of the “machine” questions were, “no, no, no and no.” We have intentionally designed our programming (what we do and DON’T do) and mission to steer away from church building and to be invested in making disciples of Jesus Christ.