Two important truths about church planting:
First, Jesus never told us to plant churches.
Second, churches in the New Testament did not come into existence through the movement of Christians from one location to another.
Both of these truths are intimately connected. We have been told to preach the gospel, which is the first step in making disciples. And, based on an apostolic model in the New Testament, it is out of a disciple making movement new churches come into existence.
We, especially those of us in North America, fail to apply these two truths to our contemporary church planting ministries. We go forth with the initial step of establishing a church to then reach a community. Rather, our expectation should be to enter a field and not talk about church until we have seen the Spirit working through our evangelism to produce new Kingdom citizens.
We shuffle sheep and plant a church. Maybe our expectations should become the exception.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a video on this topic at my Youtube Channel. Check it out. Let me know your thoughts. I would love to hear from you.
It looks like we have been getting this wrong for sometime. Believers cannot see their call to be makers of disciple makers. Church do not assist or encourage Christians to be makers of disciple makers. I guess we should not be surprised if our multiplication plan only includes church planting.
Thank you, Jim, for sharing some important insights.