When Talking About Church Planting Feels Like Witnessing to Mormons 2

When I share the gospel with Mormons, one of the first things I do is establish our definitions.  Without cutting to the chase and recognizing our definitional differences, it is difficult to then evaluate what we each believe in light of the Bible (the KJV of course!).

Discussing church planting in most North American circles reminds me of witnessing to Mormons.  Same words, different definitions used.

The next time you start to say the words “church planting” stop and think: What am I talking about and what are they hearing?

The next time someone near you says “church multiplication,” ask yourself a question:  What do they mean?

In North America, we have definitional differences when it comes to church planting.

If you believe it is about gathering long-term Christians together to covenant as a local church, then say so.

If you believe it is about making disciples from out of the harvest and leading them to covenant as a local church, then say so.

If you believe it is about gathering a crowd for a worship gathering, then say so.

If you believe that church planting is something else, then say so.

But one thing we should all know for certain is that the Bible does not tell us to plant churches.  Our mission is not about church planting (Hence, the reason I began my 2009 book Discovering Church Planting with the statement, “It is not about church planting.”).

But once we have come to understand what we are saying, let’s examine the Scriptures to see if what we mean needs adjustment.

When our vocabularies become saturated with words everyone uses, we begin to assume that we all know what we mean when we use such words.  In the beginning, when such words are unfamiliar and scarce we generally have to state the word and our definition to establish common ground.  Overtime, we get tired of providing definitions.  “After all,” we reason, “everyone by now knows what we mean.”  Not true.

We used to do this with “gospel.”

But then a bunch of wise stewards came along and rightly asked the question, “What do you mean?” Then they followed up with a biblical evaluation to determine if those commonly-held definitions squared with the Scriptures.  If you want to know what happened after such inquiries were made just search Amazon to see how many “gospel” books have been published recently.

“Church planting” has become a ubiquitous expression and “church multiplication” is quickly growing in popularity.  We need to ask one another, “What do you mean?” and then move to biblical evaluation.

Definitions express our theology.

Our theology shapes our strategies and methods on the field.

Let’s stop saying church planting, unless we can say what we mean.  And then let’s evaluate one another to see if what we mean is in alignment with the Scriptures.  This is extremely important when we have not been commanded to plant churches.

But what if we check our definitions with the Scriptures and determine that what we have been saying for years (and developing strategies to support) is not what we should be saying and advocating?

I think you know the answer to that question.

Let’s keep definitional differences to witnessing to Mormons and not in church planting discussions.

(image credit: Microsoft, Royality-Free/Corbis)