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Missiological Reflection #12
"Church Planting is More
than Pioneering"
I grew up in Northeastern Arkansas, where
mission and evangelism were a part of life. One of my fondest memories was
working with my father and other local Christians to lay the cement blocks
that became the meeting place of a new church planting. Boyd Morgan, the
author of Arkansas Angels and a life-long itinerate evangelist,
typified this pioneering spirit. After many years of "expanding the borders
of the Lord’s kingdom," he became the first preaching minister of the new
congregation. In Arkansas Angels he described the early missionaries
who planted the first churches in northern Arkansas:
"These men loved the cause for which they
labored more than their lives. They toiled, they walked, they traveled
horseback or by train, just a few went by early autos. They laughed, they
cried, and they prayed over their problems. They worked with their own
hands to support themselves. Their families also worked to supplement the
meager preacher’s pay when they got any . . . . Disappointments,
hardships, perils of life, hard times were legion. [These hardships] meant
nothing to these men whose faith in the Bible and their God . . . was the
directing force of their lives. These men were alive and active. They
ceased only when the flesh failed. Their work lives" (1967, iv).
During my early years, I assumed that church planting was
natural to the life of the church. To be a Christian was to reproduce, and
the ultimate type of reproduction was the planting of new churches. I was
nurtured within my local church to become a missionary.
Beginning about 1960 the idea of reproducing--planting a new church--was
largely lost in the North American church and is just now beginning to be
re-established. During these years of missions decline, church planting
became a specialized art done by professionals because it was believed to be
beyond the capacity of local church people. In Christian schools evangelism
and missions were relegated to the periphery of religious studies. Ministry
courses lost their redemptive emphasis and focused primarily on equipping
ministers to serve within the body of Christ. Classes on the missionary life
of the church and on church planting and development were specialized
classes taken by future missionaries rather than by all ministry students.
As a result, the need for church planting disappeared from the radar screens
of most North American church leaders. Their goal was to develop their own
church, not to plant others. "Only missionary pioneers," they thought,
"plant churches, and we are not missionaries!" The concept of their church
planting another church sounded absurd. "Why should members of my church
leave this congregation to establish a new church?" they reasoned. "Cannot
larger churches do more than smaller ones?" In reality, however, most of
these churches lost the impulse to work redemptively among unbelievers,
turned inward, and forgot the world around them.
I believe that we must learn that the spiritual and practical impetus for
missions and church planting ultimately flows out of the local church. The
body of Christ, then, must become missionary.
Types of Church Planting
It is my hope that this Monthly Missionary Reflection will help you envision
different types of church planting and stimulate you to think about the
possibility of church planting as a natural response in growing churches.
Pioneering
Image first a pioneering ministry. In this model Christian leaders
move into an area to start a new church from scratch. Because they are new
to the community, they must learn to speak the language of the people
(even in a domestic context), understand the culture of the people
among whom they are working, form personal relationships within the
culture, and develop models of ministry appropriate to the context.
The need for the missionary to adapt to a new setting makes pioneering the
most difficult type of church planting. It requires Christians who are
initiative evangelists—able to empathetically connect with the community and
bring initial people to Christ.
Although the initial stages are difficult, pioneering does have some
distinct advantages. The new body can be nurtured to become a missionary
church from its very inception. If the church is taught to believe that the
world is lost without Jesus Christ, it is likely to be more ready to
understand and prioritize the redemptive purposes of God and thus evangelize
both locally and globally. Non-reproductive structures and models of church
can be avoided.
Our team, working among the Kipsigis of Kenya, was composed of pioneer
church planters. We learned the language and culture of a new people,
planted the first churches, discipled new believers to Christian maturity,
trained national leaders, and handed the baton of leadership over to
national leaders. All pioneer works, however, are not successful. One of my
students, after finishing an undergraduate degree, was asked to pioneer a
new church planting in a suburb of a major U.S. city. After four
discouraging years he and his wife were unable to connect to the community,
bring unbelievers to Christ, and plant a new church. They eventually gave up
in discouragement.
Initiative evangelists—possessing interpersonal abilities to relate to
unbelievers, administrative ability to organize new Christian fellowships
and a sense of adventure—will find pioneering their forte.
Branching
Now picture an existing church giving a part of itself to initiate another
church within its sphere of influence. This process, which we will call
branching, is a natural outgrowth of a theology of mission. Existing
churches, having a godly passion for the lost and a desire to evangelize
their areas, establish other churches until they fill an area.
Especially in the early months, the new church may reflect the values of the
mother church and may even be controlled by her. Because the branching
community must focus on bonding together as a new church fellowship, their
initial evangelistic potential may be reduced. There are, however, numerous
advantages. These churches frequently begin with mature leadership and are
largely self-supporting from their inception. They may also develop
"distinctive flavors" attracting unchurched people previously untouched by
existing churches in the community. Branching is an extremely effective—yet
understudied and under-used—type of church planting in this generation.
The planting of the Oldham Lane Church of Christ by the Baker Heights church
in Abilene, Texas, is an example of effective branching. Baker Heights was
"landlocked" yet desperately needing larger facilities and more parking
space. They considered buying a new piece of property and building a new
sanctuary. However, that meant leaving behind their traditional community.
The elders suggested to the congregation a different approach: plant another
congregation in an area where the city of Abilene was growing and leave
Baker Heights intact. This plan was accepted, and three elders, seven
deacons, the pulpit preacher, and 75 members committed themselves to the new
church planting. They first met in the family room of the Baker Heights
church building, then moved to a vacant church building closer to the new
community, and finally to their new building when it was completed. Four
years later the Baker Heights church was once again filled to capacity and
planning to plant another new church. The Oldham Lane church had, meanwhile,
had also grown to over 500 members (Jimmy Jividen 1999).
Local churches need to branch when they are filled to capacity and when many
Christians are driving in from growing areas of the city. Church leaders,
furthermore, should not to leave behind the communities where their churches
currently exists but develop the vision, motivation, and process to
creatively plant branch churches in the new growing communities of their
cities.
Paradoxically church splits are also a "branching mechanism". "Sometimes a
church is pregnant without knowing it." When the split does occur, both
parts tend to flourish, especially during their initial stages (Logan and
Ogne, 1991). If branching, however, had been a part of the Christian
heritage, such birthings would more likely occur through leadership
consensus rather than because of arguments and disagreements.
Seeding
Envision intensive equipping of lay leaders to become God’s messengers
wherever they move and where families and friends live. This equipping
involves personal modeling of evangelism: Evangelists model teaching
unbelievers so that they become Christians who also teach others. Thus
church planting typically follows the natural migration and social patterns
of the local culture. The fellowship of believers has a sense of preparing
themselves and the world for the second coming of Christ. Jehovah is
perceived to be a missionary God who actively works through Christians for
the redemption of the lost. The church focuses not only on initial
proclamation but also on nurturing new Christians and equipping of leaders.
All believers are taught that since they are God’s chosen people, they are
to evangelize and begin fellowships wherever they go. This seeding—the
motivating and equipping of lay leaders to evangelize and plant churches—has
led to the spontaneous planting of multiple churches in many parts of the
world. Evangelism and church planting are understood to be a natural part of
Christian identity.
The limitation of this model is that churches come into existence without
adequate leadership to nurture new Christians to maturity. Consequently, the
effectiveness of this model necessitates congregational equipping and
leadership training so that each local fellowship becomes fully organized.
Otherwise, the churches established remain small, unorganized bodies without
living, public ministries in their communities. Logan advocates that this
model requires a training institute to nurture converts and train leaders
(1991). In urban contexts this spontaneous expansion of local churches
creates significant problems because middle and upper classes expect
Christians to worship in designated houses of worship. The seeding model,
because it is network-based, may not meet the expectations of certain people
within urban cultures, who tend to be facility-oriented. This type of church
planting, however, works exceptionally well in face-to-face, informal, rural
cultures and among the urban poor who have recently migrated to the cities.
This model was employed during the Second Great Enlightenment to spur great
revival and church planting on the American frontier. It was successfully
used among Pentecostals of Latin America when rural peasants moved into
cities. During the last two decades of the twentieth century lay leaders in
rural China utilized this model as they taught God’s message from family to
family and village to village. Christian leaders, who were converted by
missionaries who pioneered the first churches among the Kipsigis in Kenya,
are implementing this model as they continue to broadcast the seed of the
gospel to initiate numerous churches.
Seeding requires the blending of varied beliefs, talents, and
motivations: a belief in the "priesthood of all believers," an understanding
that communities of believers can have cohesion and faith without extensive
physical facilities, biblical understandings of the brevity of time and the
active power of the Holy Spirit, creativity and interpersonal qualities to
develop nurturing and training mechanisms for laity and leaders, and a love
and empathy with the poor. God may call Christians with these beliefs and
talents into a ministry of seeding.
Partnering
Imagine now churches, Christian leaders, or agencies partnering to
start a new church. In this model church planters serve as catalysts who
coordinate the many evangelistic and benevolence ministries used by the
collaborating churches and Christians to meet the needs of a particular
community.
This model is often seen in the establishment of inner-city churches in
North America. For example, the Nashville Inner City Church of Christ,
established in 1987, is a partnership of many Nashville churches. Suburban
churches provide financial support for the inner city church and teach
children from the inner city in their church buildings during the week. The
motto of the Nashville Inner City church is "Reach the lost and get the army
of God involved in reaching the lost." Chris Boyce, who worked in this
ministry for several years, comments that this cooperative model brings
unity to area churches and gets Christians from suburban churches "out of
the pews and into the war. Too many suburban Christians are ‘AWOL in the
pews’". Becoming involved in the inner city church helps them realize that
lost people live in their own backyard and helps them find service in the
kingdom of God (Boyce, 2000).
There are a number of limitations to partnering. First, the high involvement
of partnering Christians makes it very difficult to equip local leadership.
The partnering churches frequently make too many decisions on behalf of the
new Christians. Consequently, the partnering churches become benefactors and
the new Christians recipients. New Christians learn to receive rather than
give. Instead of being equipped for ministry, they discover how to "prime
the pump" for more benefits. Second, if the new church plant is unable to
maintain the programs started by the partnering churches, it is doomed to
dependence on outside help. Finally, the partnership model tends to surface
many chiefs with differing philosophies of ministry. Robert Logan says, "Too
many cooks can ruin the soup" (Logan and Ogne 1991). When these limitations
are minimalized, however, partnering can become a valuable model of church
planting.
God is using Christian leaders with compassion for the poor, the gift of
administration, and the ability and desire to empower the powerless as
effective partnering church planters.
Revitalizing
Picture a minister working to revitalize a dying or disintegrating
church. Revitalizing frequently becomes necessary in urban communities where
the church dies or disintegrates because of socio-economic or ethnic shifts.
Because the community now has a different make-up, revitalization requires
cross-cultural shifts. Evangelists, who represent the new community
majority, should be hired and empowered. The message, forms, and functions
of Christian life should be recontextualization so that the emigrant
communities will understand the message of about Jesus Christ and be
influenced to turn their lives to God. Appropriate evangelistic strategies
should be developed for the new majority group of the community.
Revitalizing, while extremely important to the future of the church,
is very difficult. The remnant from the original congregation frequently
claim ownership of the church and insist that traditional ways of doing
church are appropriate. In many cases the original church, consequently, has
to die in order to be resurrected to life. Church buildings of dying
churches, furthermore, should seldom be sold because they provide a foothold
in a specific community. If God desires all people to hear the gospel, we
should not give up on a community, but seek to transition local churches to
indigenous leadership.
Revitalizing is similar to pioneering in many ways. The major
difference is that the heritage of the earlier church will likely influence
the revitalization. Therefore, a church planter who is working to
revitalize a church must be capable of initiating significant change. He
must also be patient in listening to those advocating traditional patterns
of "doing church" and sensitive in introducing alternative paradigms for the
future. Above all, he must effectively evangelize and disciple those who
have become the dominant population of the community. Supporting churches
must stand behind church planters as they make significant transitions to
help these transitioning churches become indigenous to their contexts.
Church Planting is More than Pioneering
Generally missions training and study focuses on pioneering. Individuals and
teams are trained to plant churches in unreached areas of cities and ethnic
groups. Those without the pioneering spirit prepare themselves to minister
within local churches. Consequently, an artificial barrier is unconsciously
erected between preparation for ministry within the local church and
preparation for missions. However, if the spiritual and practical impetus
for missions and church planting ultimately flows out of the local church,
then the entire body of Christ must become missionary.
The planting of new churches is natural wherever and whenever existing
churches are vibrant. For example, a church fills its auditorium and
classrooms to capacity on Sunday mornings. To grow further the church must
decide between building a larger facility at a new location or planting a
new church. Or, perhaps a family moves to a community where no church exists
(or at least no church of their religious heritage). If they have a zeal for
the Lord, they may ask brothers and sisters from their home church to help
them start a church in their new community. They might also advertise in the
new community for members of their religious heritage to start a new church.
Many church planting movements are begun, not by missionaries or local
evangelists, but by dedicated laity who organize churches wherever they go
(Garrison 1999). Vibrant movements come into existence by churches
planting churches which in turn plant still other churches.
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