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Church planting, an Enigma: part I
In this article Tony seeks to unpack the essence of what is involved in planting a church as part of an apostolic movement. This article first appeared in the June 2008 edition of the Newfrontiers Magazine.
For the vast majority of my early years as a Christian, church planting was an enigma. I heard a little about it and it sounded really interesting and exciting, something I felt I would love to be involved in. But how do you do it? How to get started?
Whenever I met someone who had planted a church I extracted as much information from them as I could, but I still couldn’t work out how to do it and, more importantly, how I could get involved.
Since then I have planted some churches, helped others plant churches and learnt a few things on the way. I want to share some of the insights I have gained. I must admit church planting is still something of an enigma but less so than it used to be! There will always be a level of mystery involved because it is God who plants His church; we just help Him.
Like a marathon
Since I recently completed the London marathon, I can’t help thinking about the similarities between marathon running and planting churches. Preparation is key - if you don’t do the training you can’t expect to do well. Even with the best preparation so much depends on what happens on the day; you can’t predict how it will go. Every race is different, especially the last, painful six miles! Similarly, preparation and training are vital in church planting but every plant is different and you just can’t predict how a particular plant will go.
Different types of church plant
Scripture and experience indicate that there are three basic types of church plant. There is the pioneering church plant where leadership is ‘parachuted’ into an area to establish a church. This was a common method employed by Paul. A good example was when he planted into Ephesus. Without having anything on the ground in Ephesus, or even close by, Paul turns up with his team, builds relationships with others in the city, gathers local people to him and plants a church. Numbers of Newfrontiers churches have been planted this way.
Then there is the mother church birthing others. The initial plant in Ephesus resulted in many other churches being planted in the province of Asia, as Luke tells us in Acts 19:10. The churches mentioned at the beginning of the book of Revelation are among those planted out from Ephesus. In many ways this is an easier way to plant a church, coming out of an existing church.
The church in Antioch is an example of the third type of plant, the ‘unplanned pregnancy’. In Antioch a group of Christians gathered because of persecution, ‘the Lord’s hand was on them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord’ (Acts 11:21). Apostolic ministry was sent from Jerusalem to serve this spontaneous new church. In Newfrontiers churches we too have experienced this type of, where God just breaks out and causes a church to be planted. Apostolic ministry then responds to what God has already done. The apostolic role is present but different in each case.
Leadership, location, vision and strategy
At its most basic, a church plant requires three elements - leadership, location and vision/ strategy. This is true for each type of plant described above. It is occasionally possible to gather a small number of people when only two elements are present, but all three are needed to plant a church.
Sometimes, once a location and a vision are identified a leader is sought for that context. Alternatively, you can have a leader with a vision to plant a certain type of church and a suitable location is then sought. Even having a leader and a location requires vision of what sort of church is going to be planted, and a basic strategy of how this is to be achieved prior to gathering people intentionally. From my experience, there is no ideal order for the three elements to come together, but church planting only really starts when all three are in place. Let’s look at these three elements and see how apostolic ministry gets involved.
To read Tony’s conclusion on the factors involved with planting a church, continue to Church planting, an enigma: part II.
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