7 Reasons for Leading Your Church in Church Planting 2

Last week, I kicked off a series on leading your church to plant churches with a post “How Churches Grow-The Other Wing of the Airplane.” Today, I want to provide you with seven reasons for leading your church to be involved in church planting.  Now, I know some of you are already convinced of the need to be involved in such Kingdom work.  If so, let me encourage you to use this information to assist your people in having a better understanding of the importance of church planting.  Take it and contextualize it for your ministry setting.

Before we begin,  however, I must provide you with my definition of church planting.  While there are many ways to plant churches today, biblical church planting is evangelism that results in new churches.  In other words, when we look to the Scriptures for a definition and model of church planting, we come to understand it as the birthing of churches from the harvest fields.  While churches can be planted with long-term Kingdom citizens–and this is not necessarily a bad thing–the weight of the biblical evidence is upon the evangelistic work of those missionary bands following an apostolic paradigm.

Now that you know that I am not talking about church splits 🙂 , let’s take a look at these  reasons.

The Biblical Reason

As already noted, the Bible sets forth an example of healthy church planting.  While we are not commanded to plant churches, it is an inevitable result of obedience to the Great Commission and following the apostolic pattern.

Soon after Paul and Barnabas departed Antioch on the first missionary journey, they found themselves moving from city to city.  What did they do?   First, they evangelized the people. Second, they gathered those new believers together to be local churches. Third, they departed to the next town (often because of persecution). Fourth, they returned to appoint elders/pastors over those churches (Acts 13-14).  Paul would also later return and visit, write letters, and send others to follow up with the churches.

The Evangelistic Reason

Church growth studies generally show that younger churches baptize more people per church members than older, well-established congregations. As churches age, their evangelistic zeal typically declines.

One study noted, on average, evangelical churches 3 years of age and younger baptize 10 people for every 100 members while churches older than 15 years of age typically baptize three people for every 100 members (“Churches Die with Dignity,” Christianity Today (January 14, 1991), 69.)

Another study among Anglo churches revealed that churches ten years old and younger baptized 10.8 people per year, per 100 members. Churches older than ten years of age, baptized 2.5 people per year, per 100 members. (Charles, Chaney, “New Churches and the Unsaved,” Mission USA (January-February 1995), 12.).

According to Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird, “Among established Southern Baptist churches. . . there are 3.4 baptisms per one hundred resident members, but their new churches average 11.7. That’s more than three times more! Other denominations offer similar numbers” (Viral Churches, 25).

The Demographic Reason

While  other countries face similar diversity, let’s take North America as an example.  The population of the United States recently surpassed 300 million. Canada has approximately 34 million people. Among this population are men, women, boys, and girls representing various socio-economic and educational levels, a diversity of ages, backgrounds, and various family structures. The majority of these people live in urban areas; however, a very large percentage of the population can still be found in rural communities.

It will require new churches to reach such a great and diverse population with the gospel.

The Cultural Reason

Again, I’ll reference my area of the world.  North America has a great amount of cultural diversity. A large portion of the United States’ population growth is related to immigration. The Hispanic community has now become the largest minority in the United States. Miami is a city unlike the rest of the state of Florida.  New Orleans is another example of much diversity.

In places around Vancouver, you are more likely to hear Chinese than English. Toronto consists of over half, non-Canadian born citizens. In most of Quebec, French is the dominant language.

We must always preach a never-changing gospel; however, our methods must be appropriately contextualized to the people to whom we are called. Each church has its own unique and distinct culture because of the people that make up that congregation.  Such is normal.  It is not always a bad thing.  However, we cannot always expect people to embrace our culture (especially our church culture) in order to hear the gospel.  Missionary work is about meeting people in the highways and hedges, sharing the truth, gathering the new believers together as a local church, and allowing the cultural expressions to develop.  The only stumbling block should be the cross, not our cultural expressions of our methods.

The Historical Reason

I always find it humorous whenever someone tells me that “my church is a church plant.”  I recognize that usually this brother or sister is attempting to communicate that their church was recently planted.  The truth of the matter, however, is that every local church is a “church plant.”  There was a time when the churches in a given country did not exist.

Yet, we are guilty of forgetting (and not knowing) our histories.  It was because of the faithfulness of some church planters that the Holy Spirit birthed our churches.  Because of a long chain of obedient disciples, the gospel arrived in our communities, resulting in new churches.  We came to faith because of church planters.  We are part of a rich history.  Churches that are involved in church planting are standing on the shoulders of the faithful who have gone before us, sacrificing so that others (including us) could hear the good news.  The church that is involved in church planting communicates, “We will not allow centuries of history to stop with us.  We will not allow the faithfulness and sacrifice of our brothers and sisters to stop with us.  We will look beyond ourselves (if the Lord delays) to a future generation in need of this same gospel!”

The Economic Reason

Clearly, some methods of church planting are very expense endeavors.  And, unfortunately, in the U. S. and Canadian contexts they are the examples that get the most attention.  And they are the examples that impress upon the minds that the norm must be that church planting is a costly ministry.  However, if we allow the Scriptures to provide both our definition for a local church and the principles for church planting, we soon realize that such exorbitant resources are not necessary to plant healthy churches.  Evangelism that results in churches does not have to be expensive to be biblical, and thus fruitful.  But know this:  The money our churches invest in missionaries and resources for church planting is a very wise and necessary investment for Kingdom work.  We need to be good steward of our finances by using them for such Great Commission activity.

The Denominational Reason

Denominations go through life-cycles.  Denominations that cease to plant churches today are denominations that will cease tomorrow.  For example, according to David T. Olson, 3,700 churches in the United States cease to exist at the end of every year (The American Church in Crisis, 146.).  That is over 71 churches per week.  If you are a part of a denomination, what percent of that 3,700 is from your denomination?