Here is my most recent column in this month's Outreach Magazine. If you were a subscriber, you would have already read it and many others. So, click here to subscribe.
In the last eight days, I have had church planting on the brain and been talking about it in several places.
1. Been the keynote speaker (and token non-Anglican) at the Anglican1000 launch meeting in Texas,
2. Taught church planting at a Classis of the Reformed Church of America in Grand Rapids
3. Spoke at the NEXT church planting conference at a Methodist Church in Warner Robins, GA.
4. Tomorrow, I'll preaching on church planting to about 10,000 students at Liberty University on, you guessed it, church planting.
So, I am thinking about church planting these days...
Here are some thoughts from the print magazine on what the real issue is:
Church Birth Control
Seems to be that churches must be on some powerful birth control. They are not reproducing. And I don't get why.
It's natural. It's normal. It's essential. And we all know how to do it. But somewhere along the way, church reproduction and multiplication became unusual or strange in North America. And I am not happy about it.
The Church is the most powerful institution in the world. Where no electricity and running water exist, you will still find a church that is planting churches. When governments grow corrupt and economies crash, the Church still stands and plants more churches. Nothing in the world and nothing in the last two millennia of history can compare to the Church. It advances best by exponential and explosive multiplying. But not here.
The Church matters. It is God's agent of change for the hopeless. It is how He delivers transformation to a hurting world. Through the Church, God unfurls the banner of mercy and announces the kingdom of grace. He has assembled the Church to tell and model the most important issue in life--how to spend all of eternity with God Himself.
God has chosen the Church to make known His multifaceted wisdom to all in authority (Eph. 3:10). Whether a power in the heavenly realm or an authority on the earth, the Church is where God rolls out His message. It is used by God to speak to the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich, the hopeful and the hopeless.
We believe in the Church not only because of what we have seen, but because of what Christ can do next. He constantly amazes us at how lives are changed through the Church.
That is why church multiplication is so vital, and why I love church planting so much. Depending on how you count, I have personally planted five. Each time I learn about a church being planted, I get ready to witness lives changed. I prepare myself to hear about cities touched by God's grace. I feel assured that entire nations will be transformed by the Gospel. Church planting is almost the most effective evangelistic strategy in the world.
What's the most effective? Church multiplication movements. When churches plant lots of other churches, our witness advances exponentially. The Gospel goes viral. We need that kind of movement today. One that cannot be controlled, confined or contained.
[Church researcher and author] Warren Bird and I have a new book coming out in May called Viral Churches: Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers (Jossey-Bass). By our definition, a church multiplication movement happens when churches:
-Multiply at a 50 percent rate (100 churches one year become 150 the next year)
-Reach 50 percent of their new people through conversion (they are reaching the lost)
-Multiply to the third generation of churches (parent, child, grandchild)
Yet I feel like a tired husband in yet another round of false labor. Everyone is talking reproduction, but not enough churches are having babies.
I hope and pray to see a church multiplication movement in North America during my lifetime. I love local churches and know that God is moving in them. But we need more churches that want to see more churches planted.
Conferences, books and articles can point the way, but only God can change the heart. We have a lot of right information, but we haven't made enough application. It will take a passion for reaching people far from God and a willingness to sacrifice for multiplication. It will even require a new kind of surrender. But I challenge you to take up the work of supporting, cheering and even boldly leading what becomes a viral church.
And, since it has been on my mind, I've been thinking about planting a new church-- which is probably a dumb idea right now!
Posted on March 2, 2010 at 11:25 PM ~ 15 Comments
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Wow. Great post, Ed! I've been on the fence as to whether or not I should make the jump and plant a new church. It would be a dumb idea for me right now, too, as I started working at a church less than a year ago and my wife is due with our second child. But dumb ideas from a worldly perspective sometimes are great ideas in God's Kingdom (that sounds biblical, doesn't it?).
Thanks for your passionate plea and prodding me in the right direction.
Of course, there are those churches that need to be sterilized.........
Great post Ed. I hear the frustration in your voice:
"Yet I feel like a tired husband in yet another round of false labor. Everyone is talking reproduction, but not enough churches are having babies."
I believe God is waking his church to take him at his word. We need to know him better and take action based in our knowledge of his faithfulness.
Thanks for your tireless efforts to keep the gospel and church multiplication before our eyes. The gospel is powerful. It can't help but grow and bear fruit in the right soil. Perhaps the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches is choking out the growth and fruitfulness we desire.
great post. it's good to know that i'm not alone in my feelings about mission and multiplication. i'm joining with you in prayer for a church multiplication movement to birth in North America.
thanks for allowing GOD to use you and your passion.
Reading your distinction between planting churches and church planting movements is an interesting thought because I hear about churches being planted all the time. Seems like at least once a week I see a tweet from A29 about a new guy planting somewhere, there are tons of church planting conferences attended by hundreds, and I hear of new guys going out. So I think there are churches being planted all over the place all the time.
The difference seems to be that there is no movement of those churches planting multiple other churches. I don't know exactly why, but I do wonder if the desire to grow churches larger has stifled the effort to plant new churches.
Until 6 months ago I had not heard of a church plant. Then God led me to start a church. After not having a clue where to start, I have spent countless miles of traveling and endless hours of reading to learn about planting a church.
Recently at a plant conference I felt like the only non-seminary and only bivocational person present. 99% of the church does not have a clue what church planting is or WHY?
Somehow the lay members of the church need to be brought up to speed. I don't have an answer how but that our new plant will have an empahsis on planting churches so our members will not be blind.
Lee
Ed, I really enjoyed this one and wholeheartedly agree. My question for you is do you consider network churches (ones that use another church's materials, sermons, etc.) church plants if the parent church isn't highly involved but does still give away their resources and for free and offer other support at times?
GO PLANT ED! Great piece and will be ordering on amazon tonight.
Ed, I think this was one of my favorite columns you've done for Outreach magazine. Looking forward to grabbing some time at Exponential.
If anyone commenting here would like a free copy of Outreach magazine with this column inside, please e-mail me your address and I'll have one sent. We also have the Exponential Church department in each issue of the mag that highlights church planters and discusses the changes happening on today's church planting landscape. Would be more than happy to send a free issue.
Just realized I didn't include my e-mail in my post: LLowry@outreach.com. E-mail me and I'll send you a free copy of March/April Outreach mag with Ed's column inside. Thanks!
I'm commenting with some trepidation here because I am no church planting expert. But a couple of things come to mind. Heb. 5:12 says, "By this time you ought to be teachers, [but] you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again."
It was disciples--men who could teach others--who received the commission to go out, make disciples and plant churches. In my experience, it's the existing disciples-in-the-making who are stuck and not yet ready to handle an influx of new believers. Because the bar's been set so low for so long, there are many who need to mature much more before they can assume the responsibility of discipling others.
One of the reasons we have so many "spiritual orphans" (as Rick Warren calls them) is because we don't have the spiritual fathers to see them through spiritual adolescence to maturity. I don't take any pleasure in saying this, but it is what I see . . over and over.
Did anyone else catch the imagery in this sentence:
"Through the Church, God unfurls the banner of mercy and announces the kingdom of grace."
You've just given me a vision of the church that I don't know that I've had before. Thanks.
Planting a church is easy... but a healthy new reproducing church plant is a whole different thing. Lot's of guys have the heart and soul to do it but don't know how. Coaching is key... Let's plant new churches and help support each other doing it. Don't go alone.
I want to see churches grow and see the number of churches grow as well. To clarify an earlier comment, and instead of posting another, lengthy comment, I have elaborated at:
http://disjournal.blogspot.com/2010/03/plenty-of-guardians-but-not-enough.html
(Plenty of guardians, but not enough fathers)
The most effective form of evangelism is planting churches. I believe this with all of my heart. Too many churches are closing and not enough people who are called are going. Ed, you are a true encouragement to the local church. Thanks for the coaching and dedication to your mission.