Why Plant Churches (part2)
13 June 2008WHY PLANT CHURCHES?
This is the second part of a 2 part article drawn from research done by various church planters including Tim Keller & Mark Driscoll looking again at this crucial question of church planting.
In the last article we looked at the first question that we often get asked in regards to Church Planting…“We already have plenty of churches that have lots and lots of room for all the new people who have come to the area. Let’s get them filled before we go off building any new ones."
Lets have a look at the second key question that is asked… “Many people say, ‘what about all the existing churches that need help, doesn’t church planting detract from helping them”?
We also plant churches because…
We want to continually RENEW THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST.
It is a great mistake to think that we have to choose between church planting and church renewal. Strange as it may seem, the planting of new churches in a city is one of the very best ways to revitalize many older churches in the vicinity and renew the whole Body of Christ. I say this for these 4 reasons: -
First, the new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body.
There is plenty of resistance to the idea that we need to plant new churches to reach the constant stream of ‘new’ groups and generations and residents. Many congregations insist that all available resources should be used to find ways of helping existing churches reach them. However, there is no better way to teach older congregations about new skills and methods for reaching new people groups than by planting new churches. It is the new churches that will have freedom to be innovative and they become the ‘Research and Development’ department for the whole Body in the city. Often the older congregations were too timid to try a particular approach or were absolutely sure it would ‘not work here’. But when the new church in town succeeds wildly with some new method, the other churches eventually take notice and get the courage to try it themselves.
Second, new churches are one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Body.
New congregations, attract a higher percentage of pioneer type people who value creativity, risk, innovation and future orientation. Many of these men and women would never be attracted or compelled into significant ministry apart from the appearance of these new bodies. Often older churches ‘box out’ many people with strong leadership skills who cannot work in more traditional settings. New churches thus attract and harness many people in the city whose gifts would otherwise not be utilised in the work of the Body. These new leaders benefit the whole city-Body eventually.
Third, the new churches challenge other churches to self-examination.
The "success" of new churches often challenges older congregations in general to evaluate themselves in substantial ways. Sometimes it is only in contrast with a new church that older churches can finally define their own vision, specialties, and identity. Often the growth of the new congregation gives the older churches hope that ‘it can be done’, and may even bring about humility and repentance for defeatist and pessimistic attitudes. Sometimes, new congregations can partner with older churches to mount ministries that neither could do by themselves.
Fourth, the new church may be an ‘evangelistic feeder’ for a whole community.
The new church often produces many disciples who end up in older churches for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the new church is very exciting and outward facing but is also very unstable or immature in its leadership. Thus some disciples cannot stand the amount of changes that regularly come through the new church and they move to an existing church. Sometimes the new church reaches a person for Christ, but the new disciple quickly discovers that he or she does not ‘fit’ the make up of the new congregation, and gravitates to an established congregation where the customs and culture feels more familiar. Ordinarily, the new churches of a city produce new people not only for themselves, but for the older bodies as well.
This is then why we say that Vigorous church planting is one of the best ways to renew the existing churches of a city, as well as the best single way to grow the whole Body of Christ in a city.
There is one more reason why it is good for the existing churches of the region to initiate or at least support the planting of churches in a given area. We plant churches—
As an exercise in KINGDOM-MINDEDNESS
All in all, church planting helps an existing church the best when the new congregation is voluntarily ‘birthed’ by an older ‘mother’ congregation. Often the excitement and new leaders and new ministries and additional members and income ‘washes back’ into the mother church in various ways and strengthens and renews it. Though there is some pain in seeing good friends and some leaders go away to form a new church, the mother church usually experiences a surge of high self-esteem and an influx of new enthusiastic leaders and members.
However, a new church in the community usually confronts churches with a major issue–the issue of ‘kingdom-mindedness’. New churches, as we have seen, draw most of their new members (up to 80%) from the ranks of the unchurched, but they will always attract some people out of existing churches. That is inevitable. At this point, the existing churches, in a sense, have a question posed to them: "Are we going to rejoice in the 80%–the new people that the kingdom has gained through this new church, or are we going to bemoan and resent the three families we lost to it?" In other words, our attitude to new church development is a test of whether our mindset is geared to our own institutional turf, or to the overall health and prosperity of the kingdom of God in the city.
Our challenge then is to keep our eyes on the BIG picture. To have a Kingdom mindset and willing to release the pioneers in our churches to Plant New Churches in the harvest fields
