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Sending to a Church Plant: Part I
Doing something new can be so exciting: visiting another country, exploring a city, tasting different foods or your first bungee jump. A fresh challenge can lead to emotional highs, an adrenaline rush, a sense of anticipation and excitement! For those involved in church planting there is also the opportunity to experience adventure and buzz. But should church planting just be a risky activity for a minority seeking a ‘spiritual high' whilst the rest of the church are spectators? Or can we all get involved?
A PRIORITY FOR ALL
Church planting was high on the agenda for Paul in the New Testament and is still vital today! Sandy Millar, from Holy Trinity Brompton (London, UK), oozes passion for church planting. ‘No ministry at Holy Trinity has been more determinedly pushed by Sandy Millar than that of church planting ... nothing has given him greater pleasure than when the plants themselves have planted churches’. As a family of churches, we believe that God has called us to plant churches:
‘Newfrontiers is a worldwide family of churches together on a mission to advance the kingdom of God by restoring the church, making disciples, training leaders and planting churches.’
As well as it being biblical, there are many other reasons why we are committed to sending people:
1. Church planting is crucial to seeing the kingdom of God come on earth as it is in heaven. ‘The most effective way of expanding the Kingdom of God was by planting new churches. We still believe that’ (John Wimber). (Steve Nicolson & Jeff Bailey, Coaching Church Planters, Vineyard)
2. Church planting is a radical tool for changing the world.
‘I have often heard it said, and I agree, that the church is God’s plan A to evangelise the world and there is no plan B. If this is true then it is vital that we plant and establish churches according to the Biblical pattern’ (John Hosier, Christ’s Radiant Church).
3. Church planting is a means of growing the church. ‘The most effective means of growing churches today is planting churches’ (Peter Wagner, Churchquake, Regal).
4. Church planting is essential for bringing the gospel, the good news of Jesus, to our nation. ‘Church planting is not easy but, if we handle it well, it is the most effective way of evangelising a new area’ (Terry Virgo, A People Prepared, Kingsway).
Many organisations and movements have developed great tools to assist those who want to go and plant a church: boot camps, training retreats, coaching and many other helpful guides for those about to depart on a church plant.
Not all of us will be called to go on a church plant yet we will all be called to send people. So how prepared are we to send? Robinson and Smith in their book Invading Secular Space suggest, ‘It should be possible for every church in the world to plant at least three other churches in their lifetime. By lifetime I mean a span of ten to fifteen years.’ This will mean having a big heart and a big vision.
A few years ago, following many prophetic words and the closing of the Stoneleigh Bible Week, the sound-bite you heard wherever you went was ‘Let’s go!’ This is a huge challenge for church leaders who can often fall into thinking ‘more people, happy people, more money and more programmes is what my job is all about - so why would I want to send people church planting?’ I even heard of a church leader who preached a sermon ‘Let’s Not Go!’
When people share that they are planning to go church planting we have a choice to make regarding how we send them: do we refuse (even prophesying they are to stay), do we resign ourselves to them leaving (and have little further contact) or do we release them the best way that we can?
SENDING - COSTS!
Releasing people to church planting can be very costly to the sending church:
Money: Some churches give generously to help those starting a church. This, coupled with sending some of your committed regular givers, can be a challenge and needs to be thought through so it does not cripple the sending church.
Gaps: Those who go are often energetic and enthusiastic people, leaving behind spaces on rotas and people needing to be trained in order to take on the responsibilities left.
Relationship: People leave whom we have got to know, have a history with and trust. Experienced friends who have stood with us in difficult times, babysitters we trust, those we have dinner with go, and the relationships that have taken time to develop feel severed.
Numbers: The way we measure success in our churches is skewed: our income, Sunday attendance, those at the prayer meeting. Following a new plant, the numbers may drop and this can feel like a blow to the remaining core.
Extra work: There is lots to do administratively to help those who are going, which takes time and does not help to grow the home church.
Momentum: Those staying can feel a loss of momentum as the energy that normally goes into outreach and mission, prayer and giving is directed towards the plant rather than the vision of the sending church.
Many of these areas will take time and energy to recover. To regain the ground in eighteen months is excellent but it can more realistically take up to three years.
SENDING - BENEFITS!
Releasing people to a church plant can also be very beneficial to the sending church:
Energy: The enthusiasm and excitement, the energy and motivation that the church planter possesses can inspire and rub off on others in the church.
Space: Space is created for new and fresh leaders to emerge and bring creative ideas. Those who would not previously have stepped up and been given an opportunity, now can grow into the space.
Vision: Sending people instils a bigger vision into the sending church; it’s not just about me and my little patch, but about giving away, thinking about the advancing kingdom and not just home base. Those churches that are good at planting locally with big hearts and vision often naturally take on a vision for the nations.
Repeats: One of the greatest benefits of a sending church is that when you have done it once it becomes easier to do again!
Fruit: The thrill of church planting comes in seeing the fruit of more lives impacted than if people had stayed where they were. Church planting gets into the church’s DNA. Churches that have planted once often go on to do it many times and are very generous though they are not always the biggest churches.
To read the conclusion of Pete’s article on the importance of sending a church plant well, continue to Sending to a church plant: part II.
Pete shares about what is involved when sending to a church plant. This article first appeared in the July 2008 edition of the Newfrontiers Magazine.
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