Church Planting Churches, part 1

I am not a great missiologist and after 7 years of theological education most of my studies have focused on theology and church history. So why am I passionate about churches actively planting other churches? I have at least three compelling reasons. First, the great and initial missiologist, the apostle Paul, demonstrates the effectiveness of planting churches. In Acts we read about a local church gradually spreading the Gospel geographically. As the Gospel is spreading geographically several languages and cultures are engaged. Acts begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome. Further, the Pauline epistles demonstrate the passion Paul has to oversee several of these church plants read about in Acts.

Second, church history has proven the effective nature of churches planting other churches. From the 1st century onward church planting has been the means to spread the Gospel to the nations. Evangelicals and Catholics before them recognized this biblical truth. In modern times individuals like William Carey, John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards have severed as missionaries; Carey to India, Wesley from England to Georgia, and Edwards from his home in Northhampton to Stockbridge where he was a missionary to the Housatonic Indians. Numerous missionaries, known and unknown have given their life for the purpose of planting churches to spread the Gospel. Note that these three examples planted churches in very different locations. Carey was a Baptist missionary who spent his life as an international missionary. Wesley briefly moved from England to Georgia to minister to the Native Americans, only to return back to England. Edwards geographically hardly moved staying in New England but planting a church among a native demographic. Church planting is an international and domestic venture. An emphasis for one cannot monopolize the other. 

Third, churches that plant other churches create an effective means for training up young men and women. They can be trained in the local church to be sent out to share the Gospel. On this point I am not a fan of mega churches (although I recognize their effectiveness in many other areas). A church that sacrifices individual church growth will grow with the multiplication of churches. Further, a church planting church will be able to minister to demographics and people groups permanently, instead of over a weekend bus trip with the youth group. As the number of churches multiple so too does the number of pastors and lay leaders being sent out.

To be fair many Evangelical leaders have trended toward planting churches. Books about church planting have multiplied exponentially in the last 15 years. I appreciate this trend and hope it continues. Now that church leaders are recognizing the need for church planting, the people in the pews must grasp the vision. Lay leaders need to burn with desire to reach areas in their city which are now dead with the Gospel. Lay leaders, nay, all Christians, must evaluate their souls and ask, "Is God sending me?"