Why you should consider joining a church plant.

We often use the term “church planting” to refer to the starting of new churches.[1]  Why would someone want to join a “church plant?”  This post offers a few reasons.

Church planting is about Jesus, or it should be.    Even a cursory reading of the New Testament reveals that Christ's plan to destroy the work of Satan, redeem people from every nation and bring glory to God gets accomplished through the Church.  Why would we want to accomplish the mission of Jesus without using the methods of Jesus?  Isn't that a bit presumptuous?  A love for Jesus must translate into a robust view of the church, and starting new churches simply utilizes the original strategy to accomplish the Great Commission.  The Book of Acts, for example is the story of the Gospel coming to the Roman world through the agency of the Church.  Today, we need to bring the same good news to our American landscape (as well as hundreds of groups of people that have no access to the Gospel) through the church.  

1.     You want to see Jesus transform a city.  Most modern experts consider church planting to be the most effective way of reaching people that do not currently believe in Jesus Christ.  Church planting is more effective than crusades or home visitation programs.  Newer churches do pull some people from existing churches but are made up disproportionately of previously unchurched people.  If you want to be involved in reaching people with the gospel, there is no more effective strategy than starting a new church.  New churches reach new segments of the city that are not currently being reached.  They may reach a new physical location or a new demographic.  More people preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ using different techniques and different methods often results in more people hearing the gospel in a way that they can understand.   Tim Keller’s essay “Why Plant Churches” is an excellent summary of this idea. 

2.     You feel called by God to use your spiritual gifts, but your current church does not need you.  The New Testament is clear that each of us has been given spiritual gifts that are to be to the benefit of others.  Often, however, churches only need a limited number of people with certain “gift-sets.”  Church plants often desperately need additional people.  One well established church may have 5 or 10 men that can preach, while a new church plant may have only 1.  Maybe God has 10 men in a city with preaching gifts so that Gospel will be proclaimed in 10 different ways and in 10 different locations, rather than each guy getting to preach 5 times a year.  If we have been called by God to sacrifice to get the message of Jesus to more people (Colossians 1:24-25), then maybe Christian leaders should emphasize sacrifice more than comfort.  Of course it’s comfortable to only have to serve every 4^th  week, but what if more people could be reached if we were willing to work every 2^nd week, let alone every week?

3.     You are an entrepreneurial sort of person that loves helping new things get started.  Let’s face it: some of us enjoy getting new things started.  There is a thrill in being on the front lines, being creative and having the pressure to have to get the job done.  I think that this is from God, and exists for the purpose of staring new churches.  If God’s solution for the problems of the world is the Church proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then he will also give entrepreneurial skills to people to get such organizations launched.  It may be that your entrepreneurial itch is the way that God begins to reach a city.  Don’t neglect it. 

So consider joining a church plant (such as ours, though there are others in Columbia), and let’s see what God will do (1 Samuel 14:6).

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[1] Of course, churches are really just practical expressions of a spiritual reality.  The Bible both refers to the spiritual reality, that all Christians are a part of the same spiritual family (the Church) and the practical reality, that Christians relate to each other through organized relationships, or (churches).  There is evidence even in the New Testament era that each city would have multiple expressions of the Church, often meeting in homes or small meeting halls.  And though these expressions of the Church shared common theology, values and similar practices, they may have had separate leaders, meeting locations and membership rolls.  For example, Paul's greeting to the church at Rome (Romans 16) includes a greeting to the church that meets at the house of Prisca and Aquila (Romans 16:5) and also separate greetings to an additional 25 individuals, many of whom are noted to be leaders in the church.  If the population of Rome was 1,000,000 (as is commonly thought), and Christianity was essentially illegal, it is reasonable to assume that these leaders lead multiple "churches" throughout the city.  They likely knew each other, worked together on common projects, but found that practically, meeting in multiple locations had advantages.  Furthermore, we know that the original Christian church in Jerusalem met both publicly and in various houses (Acts 2:46).