Should we "Plant" Churches?

[Miguel Labrador]

A friend of mine recently said, "Instead of going out with a view to plant churches we should plant ourselves in the mission of the Kingdom of God and wait for Christ to grow his church in our space."

I was immediately struck by the power of that statement and started to search the scriptures for a biblical warrant to "plant" churches. I found none.

Should "Planting" churches be part of a missional vocabulary or not? What say you?

[Joe Palmer]

Miguel,

Planting churches is a strategy for evangelism which God does tell us to do. A church plant is a group of christians deciding to go and establish the church in a community. The lord doesn't tell us the manner in which to evangelize. I am not trying to argue the point. I do think if you read Acts especially chapter 8 forward it is about establishing churches in the areas they went. The epistles are letters and instructions to those planted churches, and 1, 2 Timothy & Titus are to leaders/missionaries in new churches.

If I was to disect the statement, which in intent is good, I would point out the following: Paul didn't just go to a city and wait for the kingdom of God to grow around him. He intentionally went, intentionally had dialogue, and intentionally made disciples. Even by saying that, I don't really disagree. I was just trying to answer the question.

I don't think the question is really fair, the way you state it. I don't think you will find a lot of things in the Bible directly. Church planting, is to me just a method. My churches does some door knocking. The Lord doesn't tell us to be a door knocking evangelistic church, but that is one of the methods we use. We also talk to people who come for help, we have friend days, we interact with visitors, have seminars for the community on marriage, and finances. All of those are methods, not commanded or forbidden.

James,

I enjoy the direction toward missional as I see and understand it. But I am still struggling to understand it fully. Don't you agree that the term "Missional Christian" or Missional Disciple" is redundant? I am thinking that this is just a way to call the church back to being what the church is supposed to be. I think I am trying to build a missional church in my community and didn't even know it.

I get confused about things like emerging church, get concerned about what some define as social justice, but I am open to learning. Maybe we can talk sometime because I don't want to hijack this thread to another topic.

Joe

[James Nored]

oe, I understand the unspoken question you have--why don't we just use the term Christian, instead of missional? Aren't they the same?

To this I would say, I wish that they were the same. That is, I wish they brought up the same images. But most Christians do not see themselves as missionaries. And sadly, most churches are not missional. In other words, we have divorced being a Christian from being a person that reaches out and takes up the mission of Christ.

As to terms, I would point out that the term Christian(s) is used only 3 times in Scripture (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16). Disciple is the common term in the gospels and Acts. Paul uses terms such as saints, brothers and sisters, etc.

Missional is from the latin word "missio," which means "to send." It is the same meaning as "apostolos," which means one who is sent. The word sent and apostle (missionary) is found throughout the New Testament, and as a theological concept, it is found throughout the entire biblical narrative. God sending his Son, the Spirit, and then us is in fact the central thrust of Scripture.

[Miguel Labrador]

Joe,

Where in the scripture, either by inference or direct revelation does it say to plant churches?

[Joe Palmer]

What about the book of Acts. Wasn't that all about planting churches? What about Paul setting Timothy and Titus in an area to build up the church to the point of having shepherds. Wasn't that too about planting the church. You definetly won't find a lot of things in the Bible like this word Misisonal which I am still not really sure why we use when all it means is a Christian, who understand what being a Christian is.

[James Nored]

Miguel, despite serving on a church planting board and being a big supporter of church planting, I totally get what you are saying. I will see if I can get some of the Exponential people to join in this discussion to get some additional thoughts on this.

[Miguel Labrador]

Thanks for featuring this post. I am still trying to balance the "Church Planting / Disciple Making equation." In a recent post elsewhere, I posed the following Question:

How can the Church Planting / Disciple Making equation be balanced?

In further reflection, I added the following:

Admittedly, I am a bit uncomfortable with the term “Church Planting.” Especially if and when it becomes synonymous with Making Disciples. Church, I think, it the natural outflow, byproduct of Making Disciples. If church planting means constructing a building (which it doesn’t to many of my church planting friends) then haven’t we put the cart before the horse? Please don’t misunderstand me, I am fully in support of doing “church” (the gathering of the saints) for the mutual benefit and edification of the body of Christ. But if we focus our primary efforts on planting churches instead of Making Disciples, it seems that the equation will always be unbalanced. If we Make Disciples first and then figure out how to bring those Disciples together (church planting) then it seems, to me at least, that the equation is more easily balanced.

Would love to develop this further.

[James Nored]

Since I am at the Exponential New Church Conference this week, I thought that this would be a good discussion to highlight and bring up again.

Any new thoughts on this subject?

[Jon Van Bruggen]

Miguel, thanks for the intriguing question. Like James, this is a topic I've discussed with several "church planters" that I'm currently coaching and the scriptural evidence we've interacted with seems to point away from the development of an organization as the first step in seeing communities of Jesus-followers emerge. Rather, the conversion and discipleship of the "unaware" or "unconvinced" seems to be the place to start, waiting for the growth to come at God's timing. After all, didn't Jesus say it was his church to build?

In his blog interview on edstetzer.com, J.D. Payne provides helpful terminology for those wrestling with the concept of church planting. First, he says that "biblical church planting is evangelism that results in new churches." That feels a bit more in line with what we see Paul doing throughout Acts. Payne also states that the "primary biblical expression of a church planter is that of a missionary, doing evangelism, gathering new believers together to be the local church, and raising up elders from within the community." This understanding confronts the popular Western understanding of church planter as CEO. Finally, in response to a question I asked him about the need to change the term "church planter" Payne suggested we refer to such people as "apostolic missionaries" which I think better reflects the biblical function that true "church planters" are called to carry out.

Thoughts?

[James Nored]

Miguel, this is an interesting thought. It may be that church planting vocabulary makes us think in non-people terms. A church is what results from people coming to faith and joining God's mission, not the reverse.

Interestingly, we had a bit of a discussion on this in our Genesis Alliance board formation meeting. Genesis Alliance is a hispanic church planting organization. Is our goal to plant churches, or to reach people for Christ, which results in churches being formed? Is church planting too tied to a methodology? Could we reach people for Christ without church planting? (Grow megachurches, for instance.)

The answers to these questions may be a combination of biblical thought as well as research. What think ye?