Church Planting

There is a church planting movement happening right now in the United States and around the world. It is causing a rapid multiplication of new disciples of Christ across denominational lines and cultural divides.

Experts say that church planting is the number one way to reach unchurched people and make new disciples for Jesus Christ. C. Peter Wagner says, "Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven." Likewise, statistics show that it is much harder for traditional churches to reach the unchurched. Therefore, there is a great need to plant churches that reach the unchurched in our nation. Church planters are modern-day missionaries to North America.

One Size Doesn't Fit All

There are many different types of church plants: missional, multi-site, house church, theatre church, and purpose-driven, to name a few. Planting culturally relevant churches in the 21st century is one of the best ways to reproduce disciples through rapid multiplication. We need churches that will reach urban, suburban, and rural communities.

One size does not fit all, and one church cannot win all. It takes a variety of churches to reach all kinds of people. The key is that the church needs to be gospel-centered and culturally relevant to whatever community or culture that they are called to serve through planting. It is important to take into consideration the culture, race, and ethnicity of the culture in which you plan to plant a church.

There are many ways to plant a church, not just one. For instance, some people choose to plant as a team, while others may choose to plant as a solo church planter. When we are talking about church structure, we should be primarily concerned with what the Bible says on the matter.

Getting Involved

Existing churches can and should reproduce themselves by planting new churches. You may be asking yourself, "How can I help plant a church? I have enough to worry about with the church I am already a part of." There are many ways that you can become involved in church planting.

Encourage Planters

First, you can encourage church planters in your area. Planting a church can be a lonely business. Nearly 80 percent of church plants fail within their first year. One of the primary reasons for failure is not a lack of finances, but a lack of relational support. Church planters often experience culture shock and spiritual fatigue. It is hard for a church planter and his family to adjust to a new culture.

Church planters have a real need for fellowship and accountability. You can build relationships with church planters and encourage them to fight the good fight of faith. These men have sacrificed everything to plant a new church. These guys need all the encouragement they can get. Meet with a church planter, pray with him, and take him to lunch or coffee.

Support a New Church

Secondly, you can help financially support a church plant. One of the greatest needs for church planting is finances. An existing church can collaborate with a new church plant by becoming a mother church that sends out a church planting team with funds. You can help pay a church planter's salary for a year. Churches in a region or community can partner together to plant new churches in their area.

You can also join or support new churches in a church planting network such as Acts 29. The Acts 29 Church Planting Network is one of the leaders of this movement. It is a trans-denominational peer-based network of missional church planting churches that have a high view of Scripture and a commitment to engage contemporary culture with the gospel. In just a few years, they have planted nearly 300 churches in the United States and have bold plans to plant over 1,000 new churches in the next 20 years.

Replanting

A final way for churches to get involved with church planting is through replanting or church revitalization. Replanting happens when a church that is in decline or dying decides to face the music and dares to start over again for the sake of advancing the gospel. This will require churches to be willing to create a new identity, empower new leaders, and reach new people for Jesus. It will probably mean that a church sells their building and puts that money back into church planting.

The reality is that very few churches have the honesty and humility to admit that it's over, and even less have the courage to do what it takes to replant. Pray and ask God if he may be leading you and your church to replant.

Church planting is one of the greatest ways to make disciples. We should all share in the responsibility of impacting our nation for Christ through planting new churches that are gospel-centered and culturally relevant. If we want to be serious about making disciples for the 21st century, we need to get involved in church planting.

Acts 29 Network

A network of churches planting churches for the glory of Jesus. Get more info.

Discerning God's Call series: Click | View Series

Ditches

There are two ditches that the church can fall into as they help confirm a person’s calling to gospel ministry. First, they can uncritically accept the internal call, or the subjective sense of calling, which is usually driven by emotions. Too often the church’s motto is, “Just let the boy preach!” The danger here is that we produce ministers who rely strictly on gifts and fail to develop godly character, all but ensuring future disqualification.

The other ditch is when the church makes it too difficult to be affirmed in gospel ministry. Such churches set the bar too high with regard to skill development (being a great preacher) or with regard to education (candidate must have finished seminary). There are many gifted pastors who started successful ministries even though they had never been to seminary, like Mark Driscoll or Matt Chandler. We need to be careful not to set the bar so high that we exclude from ministry those whom God is genuinely calling.

Tests

How should the church test whether or not a man is called into pastoral ministry from a skill perspective? There are at least two tests a church should consider. The first test involves a man’s understanding of Scripture. Questions that should be answered might include:

• Does he have a working knowledge of the whole of Scripture?
• Can he articulate the gospel story throughout the Scripture?
• Does he understand the controversial passages that have caused division in church history (Calvinism vs. Arminianism, method and mode of baptism, and so on)?
• Can he make concrete life applications from the Scripture?

The second test involves inspecting the fruit of his ministry. Questions might include:

• Can he inspire the church for mission?
• Can he cast vision for the church and inspire people to pursue that vision with him?
• Can he organize the church to reach its goals?
• Can he set up systems and structures that run apart from his direct influence?

Discerning God’s Call in Your Life

All three of these confirmations—heart, head, and skill—must be present in a genuine call. The pentecostal/charismatic camp tends to focus on heart and the supernatural calling from God, the reformed/evangelical camp tends to focus on the head, and the mainline churches often focus on skills—but in a genuine call, all three are present.

Above, I posed some questions the church should ask when considering a candidate’s call. Here are some questions for you to consider as you discern God’s call in your life:

• Do I enjoy learning and communicating the truth about God to people from Scripture? Am I willing to be disciplined in my study habits as a pastor?
• Am I able to lead people effectively toward a goal? Are people able to follow me? Am I willing to take some hits for decisions that I make?

Acts 29 Network

A network of churches planting churches for the glory of Jesus. Get more info.

Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the video.

What should Americans learn from the post-Christian culture of western Europe? In this short interview, Steve Timmis talks about how the church is God's mission strategy and why Americans should learn from Europe.

Total Church

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis present a vision for churches centered on gospel community. Find out more.

Discerning God's Call series: Click | View Series

Pastoral Ministry

Ministry is more than hard. Ministry is impossible. And unless we have Holy Spirit-inspired fire inside our bones compelling us, we simply will not survive. Pastoral ministry is a calling, not a career. It is not a job you pursue to advance a career or a position that is preferable because you like attention. You don’t go into ministry because you liked your youth pastor or because your mom thinks you’d be good at it or to avoid manual labor. I am continually shocked at how many people are trying to do ministry without a clear sense of calling.

So what is a call? What does it look like?

To begin, let’s learn from those who have gone before us.

8 Qualities of a Minister

Martin Luther, the 16th-century church reformer and theologian who helped spark the Protestant Reformation, listed eight qualities that a minister must have:

• Able to teach systematically
• Eloquence
• A good voice
• A good memory
• Knows how to make an end
• Sure of his doctrine
• Willing to venture body and blood, wealth and honor in the work
• Suffers himself to be mocked and jeered by everyone

3 Indications of a Call

John Newton, the 18th-century Anglican clergyman and writer of the famous hymn “Amazing Grace,” noted three indications of a call. First, a call to ministry is accompanied by “a warm and earnest desire to be employed in this service.” Second, a call to ministry is accompanied by “some competent sufficiency as to gifts, knowledge, and utterance.” And third, a call to ministry is accompanied by “a correspondent opening in Providence, by a gradual train of circumstances pointing out the means, the time, the place, of actually entering upon the work.”

Is Ministry Your Calling?

George Whitefield, the 18th-century evangelist, gives this advice for those considering a call: “Ask yourselves again and again whether you would preach for Christ if you were sure to lay down your life for so doing? If you fear the displeasure of a man for doing your duty now, assure yourselves you are not yet thus minded.”

Qualifications

Charles Hodge, the 19th-century Reformed theologian, distinguished between intellectual qualifications, spiritual qualifications, and bodily qualifications, all of which must be present in a genuine call.

Robert L. Dabney, another 19th-century Presbyterian theologian, lists these qualifications:

• A healthy and hearty piety
• A fair reputation for holiness of life
• A respectable force of character
• Some Christian experience
• An aptness to teach

Though these men’s perspectives are culturally conditioned, you get the point: Examination is imperative. Confirmation is required. Calling matters.

As you discern God’s call on your life, consider the advice of those who have gone before. In the next three posts, we will look at three areas that I believe are crucial for discerning God’s call on your life: heart confirmation, head confirmation, and skill confirmation.

To be continued.

Vintage Church

In this book, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears discuss the essentials of what it means to be a biblical church. Find out more.

At the recent AMBITION Boot Camp, I sat down with A29 vice president Darrin Patrick to talk about what wisdom he had for church planters and his tips for preaching. I believe he offers some invaluable counsel. Listen. Learn. Tweet.

Darrin Patrick's book Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission will be out this August from Crossway.

How Jesus Made Disciples

Reflections from the book of John on How Jesus Made Disciples.

Nick Nye and Kevin Larson are both Acts 29 pastors and recent graduates of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. They sat down with for an interview with Towers, the seminary's news service, to talk about what church planting is really like. Read the full article here.

Nick and Kevin also answer some questions in these video clips.

Do church plants have struggles?

What do you enjoy about being a partner of the Southern Baptist and Acts 29 ministry?

What types of results have you seen?

Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the videos above.

R.C. Sproul Interviews

Has R.C. Sproul ever been on the internet? What is the biggest upcoming theological battle? Dr. Sproul answers questions like these in this special interview series.

9 Leadership Lessons from Baseball: Click | View Series

Lesson 7: Keep Some Griffey-Like Player-Coaches

Some older veterans can still play a bit but their real value is that they are also coaches. These players are highly respected by younger players, help set the clubhouse chemistry (also called organizational culture), and are revered by the other players. No team can be made up of solely this kind of players, but every team needs a few in strategic positions. These player-coaches love to develop talent and encourage and train young leaders, and thus are an invaluable asset to the organization. Still, any older player who cannot play well, does not coach well, and is not a supportive ally in building a good clubhouse should not be getting paid by the team.

To be continued.

Rain City Hymnal

A fresh approach to 12 ancient hymns. Listen online and get the album from Re:Sound. Find out more.

Tyler Jones is lead pastor of Vintage21 Church in Raleigh, NC, and Southeast Regional Director for Acts 29. He will be speaking at the upcoming conference Contextualizing the Gospel in the New South on April 26-28.

There is a 250 year-old cemetery near my house and often my family and I will meander through it. The range of life recorded in this small plot of land is immense. As you may expect, there are gravestones testifying to lives lived that remind us of the few years we will walk this planet. I often find myself captivated by single graves, wondering exactly who those men were. What made them passionate? What did they yearn for, fight for, and die for? The cemetery also bears witness to eras of history. Entire sections contain the graves of veterans, memorializing many lives lost in a few short years.

The events these men died for are markers along the timeline of our country. They shift the politics, well-being and even the mindset of the people. Generations are affected for good and bad; the lives of loved ones are lost, the liberty gained is precious. History scrutinizes each event, large or small, and volumes are written about the heroes and cowards whose actions changed the world.

The Unnoticed War

We are in the midst of a war, and yet there are no records of battles waged in protest, no heroic lives lost. It is not marked by battles or invasions; you won’t hear reports on the news, yet lives are at stake. At this very moment, there is an exodus from the local church and ultimately away from worshiping Jesus—and we are standing by until the graves are marked. In our time and in our place, we—without strategy, without labor, without laying down our lives—are allowing the South to become a boneyard of religious history. This war being waged around us has at its very foundation liberty and eternal life.

I am not attacking the church, nor criticizing the many thousands who labor tirelessly to make much of Jesus—I am immensely thankful for these men and women. Actually, this is precisely the opposite of an attack. My desire is to help the church in the South take an honest look at where we are and how we are laboring to accomplish the Great Commission. I realize calling the South a “religious boneyard” is hard for some to digest. There is a church on every street corner and over 80 percent of people in the South believe in God with absolute certainty. It would seem that the church is healthy and doing well.

A Church Building on Every Corner

It is true that there is a church building on every street corner, in every city of the South. For example, I work in downtown Raleigh, many floors up in an office building, and from my window I can count seven churches in plain sight. In fact, this alone is the best evidence that the South is a boneyard of religious history. There are many, many churches in the South—but most are dying, if not dead already. One of the largest denominations in the South reports that when their churches reach 40 years in existence, those churches enter into a steep rate of decline ultimately ending in death. This same denomination reports that 82% of their churches are older than 40 years in existence.

Reviving the Boneyard

This is the reality of the South. There are always multiple church buildings in plain sight, and yet they simply represent an ancient age of church vitality that has passed. Many churches must own the fact that they are in steep decline and radically re-orient their very existence. Some churches are dead already; they should disband and give their resources to church planters so the mission can continue. All churches in the South must get serious about the mission and begin to reproduce by planting and revitalizing churches.

The problem the church is facing in the South is much deeper than just older churches that are less effective than they used to be and are dying. There are five or six contributing factors causing the decline of the church. In my next blog post, I will show you how to be Southern is to be religious, and yet Christian faith in the South exists primarily in name alone.

Advance 10

The Advance 10 conference will equip leaders to engage the changing culture of the New South with the unchanging message of the gospel. Find out more.

Click through to the Resurgence if you can't see the video.

In this interview A29 pastor Keith Watson talks about practical ways to love your city as well as how to avoid key church planting pitfalls. Keith’s counsel is very honest, practical, and helpful to all seeking to plant a Gospel-centered church.

For more from Dustin Neeley check out cp4us.org.

A Book You'll Actually Read

Clear, biblical answers to some of the most common questions. Mark Driscoll boils down the big ideas into little books.

Have you been thinking about planting a church? Do you lead an existing church that wants to plant new churches? Are you curious about Acts 29? Sign up to attend one of the upcoming Acts 29 Bootcamps.

• April 17, 2010 – Church Planting Foundations Conference, Northern Ireland
• April 26-28, 2010 – Raleigh-Durham, NC Bootcamp (held in conjunction with the Advance the Church Conference)
• May 17-19, 2010 – Church Planting Foundations Conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• May 26-27, 2010 – Denver, CO Bootcamp
• September 29-30, 2010 – Seattle, WA Bootcamp
• November 9-10, 2010 – Phoenix, AZ Bootcamp

Search our archives to find free media from previous Acts 29 bootcamps including The Call (Seattle, 2009), and Plant & Thrive (Raleigh, 2009).

Death By Love

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears tackle some of the most serious redemptive aspects of Jesus' work in these twelve letters of counsel. Find out more.