Missions Blog for Churches

I met Dr. Tennent while attending a world missions conference at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (when he taught there). This was the first time I was exposed to much of the academic assessment of these missiological trends and much of the history surrounding them. I have used a map he shared with us with many churches, as it visually represents what is happening. We live in an exciting time!

The Translatability of the Christian Gospel
by Timothy Tennent

The following is excerpted from remarks made by Dr. Timothy Tennent, president of Asbury Theological Seminary, at the school’s Fall 2009 Convocation.

In April of 1739 John Wesley was preaching in an upstairs room in London. About halfway into his sermon the supporting post that held up the floor of the room collapsed under the sheer weight of the number of people who had gathered to hear Wesley. Wesley remarked in his journal that the supporting post fell with a great noise. The floor sank, but it didn’t cave in and, to Wesley’s own amazement, everyone settled back down and he was able to finish preaching.

What do we do when it seems like the very floor under our feet is giving way? Many of the traditional props and supports which have long given stability to the world of theological education have fallen away with a great crash—what are we to do? How do we live in a time of disequilibrium, uncertainty, and change? Never in history has the Church undergone such dramatic growth and change so quickly. When William Carey went to India in 1793, 99 percent of all Christians in the world were white and lived in the Western world. Today, the vast majority of Christians live outside the Western world. We are witnessing multiple centers of Christian vibrancy, even as we see the Western world re-emerging as the world’s fastest growing mission field and the home of the most gospel-resistant people groups in the world. In contrast, all of the most gospel-receptive people groups in the world are found in either India or China. We live in an upside down world.

The support post upon which was written: “you are the center of the ecclesiastical universe,” has collapsed and we have to regain our footing in this new world we inhabit and think afresh about what this means for theological education in North America. None of these developments were predicted 50 years ago. Today, as I survey the landscape of ecclesiology and theological education in the Western world it is clear that we are living in a time of unprecedented crisis. This is not to be overly negative or alarmist, for I am reminded of the great Dutch missiologist, Hendrick Kraemer (1888-1965), who famously commented that “the church is always in a state of crisis; its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it.”

The floor is creaking beneath our feet. What does this mean for Western Christians in the 21st century?
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The starting point in mobilizing a church for missions is education. All Christians should be aware of the biblical imperative of cross-cultural missions, how God is working through missionaries, and what other cultures are like. The Holy Spirit uses this information to draw his people into service and support of world evangelization. The following are some of the many ways missions leaders can encourage their congregations to become more educated about the Great Commission. Using a creative variety of topics and venues throughout the year will keep missions education fresh.

Biblical Basis for Missions
A missions ministry that glorifies God must be biblically grounded. Further, there is no better way to capture people’s hearts for missions than to show them from the Bible how passionate God is towards extending his kingdom. The article in the Laying The Foundation series entitled The Great Commission in the Scriptures or Global Missions—Our Theological Foundations that follows here are good places to begin. This material could be copied and distributed to Sunday Schools, small groups, session members, etc. or adapted for a sermon. Mission to the World has also prepared an introductory missions curriculum called The Gracious Commission. This is a series of four interactive lessons on the biblical basis for missions, written from the perspective of grace rather than guilt or need. You can use just one or all four of the lessons in a small group or Sunday school.

Missionary Stories
People relate more to a person than a concept, so you will want to introduce your members to current and former missionaries. Such relationships will help them see that missionaries are just normal people, with similar struggles and weaknesses. Their stories of life and ministry in a different culture will help make missions real to your church. As you introduce your congregation to missionaries, be sure to identify those whose purpose and placement you endorse, as you are implicitly affirming their particular work by arranging a presentation.

Cultural Awareness
The world is a fascinating place, and every missions minded person has a God-given sense of adventure. Develop events that showcase particular cultures through a variety of senses, including visual presentations that depict people and places, meals that introduce members to local tastes and smells, and cultural objects that people can touch. Showing foreign movies is an excellent way to provide insights into other cultures. You can also promote homestay visits, where people from other countries stay in members’ homes for a brief period.

Cross-cultural Issues
Members will be interested in hearing about issues that missionaries face in another culture, and how national Christians live out their faith. Arrange presentations on topics such as how missionaries adjust to living in a new culture, how honor and shame dominate Asian and Middle Eastern values, or how Christians are oppressed or persecuted in many countries.

Forums
Most successful missions ministries host an annual missions conference, with the primary purpose of educating and mobilizing the church for missions. In addition, keep missions in front of members throughout the year by arranging various forums that are smaller and/or a single meeting. Open up a home for an evening with a missionary, arrange a panel discussion on a particular topic, pray for the persecuted church in a special service, or direct members to regional missions conferences. Or arrange a “Meeting For Better Understanding” (see Muslims and Christians at the Table below for more information) with local Muslims.

Missions Books
The following books are some of the excellent material on missions. Make these available to your members, give them to leaders, and/or host a missions book club.

This article is available in .pdf format for easier reading and printing by clicking here.

by, Keith R. Bucklen

Missions. Contrary to a common man-centered view, it is not primarily about getting people into the kingdom. First and foremost, missions is about the glory of God. The blessing that man receives, both as the beneficiary of salvation and the instrument for the salvation of others, is a secondary (though inseparable) consequence.

Psalm 67 clearly expresses this link between God’s glory in missions and man’s blessing through an agrarian metaphor:

“May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine upon us,
that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations. … (click here to continue reading this article)

The following is a book review of When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor…and yourself. You can find out more about this book at www.whenhelpinghurts.org and can order it online here.

When Helping Hurts is a compelling book that will be a significant help to the Church for years to come. The first chapter alone is worth the cost of the book and ought to be read by every church leader in every ministry category. This is not just a book for the missions committee (although it ought to be required for everyone involved in missions) or the Outreach Director, or the pastor. I think every Christian in America would benefit. Most evangelicals would be rattled.

There are several benefits from this book. Since most people read book reviews to try and determine whether they want to buy and read the book, let me mention those benefits.

It doesn’t just pick on the Church or her leaders. This book is personal; it will pick on you. It was deeply convicting to me as I read it. I realized that as many times as I have been moved by stories about the fatherless and the widow, the poor and the sick, I am not purposefully living for my life, and leading that of my family, to intersect with these members of society. I have forsaken the needy by my enslavement to convenience and stuff. My house is conveniently situated away from poverty. I hardly see the needy. And then there is my busyness. All my important tasks that keep me far away spending myself on “behalf of the hungry” (Is. 58:10) are often where I find my own significance and worth. I am convicted that although I hold to the position that all humans are created in the image of God, I don’t live as such. And I realize that I do have a god-complex (although every time I read that phrase in the book, my first reaction was, “No I don…..okay, I do. I do.”).

The authors are not writing from lofty chairs in academia. They pen their own confessions. One of my favorites is, “I confess to you that part of what motivates me to help the poor is my felt need to accomplish something worthwhile with my life, to be a person of significance, to feel like II have pursued a noble cause…to be a bit like God…I sometimes unintentionally reduce poor people to objects that I use to fulfill my own need to accomplish something. it is a very ugly truth, and it pains me to admit it, but ‘when I want to do good, evil is right there with me’ (Rom. 7:21).” [p. 65] They also give a number of examples that show where they blew it. This communicates not only humility, but also a sense that there’s a bit of a journey involved. Helping the needy will never become neat, clean and orderly.

This book is highly biblical, both in its use of Scripture for application as well as in developing a theory of poverty that serves as the framework. You won’t be able to get past a few pages at any point in the book without being confronted by biblical truth (and a helpful reference). And it does not do what many books on this subject do, namely, present steps and practices for alleviating poverty dissected from the Bible as the source of these truths or from the Holy Spirit as the source of divine power. Rather, the authors continually remind you of the authority of Scripture and our dependency on the Holy Spirit for power and guidance in the journey. One good example is early in the book, as the authors lay the groundwork for the importance of relationships in assisting the poor and sick. They take the reader back to the relationship in the Godhead, the Trinity. And from there they expand and explain how ministry flows through relationships. The poor are not going to be helped, without hurting them, if we just conduct drive-by ministry.

This book is also highly practical. The authors not only explain best practices and steps to take, but they give examples of what they might look like. And they also offer gracious critiques of benevolent practices that many of us have followed. The strange thing is that while reading many of the critiques, the thought ran through my head, “That always seemed a little unwise to me.” You’ll finish with not just new techniques, but will actually have an understanding of why some things work and some don’t.

Many in the church will want to read this because of their local outreach. But this book is just as important for global outreach. In my job, I am continually laboring to help churches understand the importance of their short-term trips not becoming drive-by (or fly-by) ministries. Feeding the poor is wonderful. Caring for the orphan is beautiful. Both are biblical. But to be the best these ministries can be, both need to be in the context (connected to) a sustainable ministry. Biblically, you can’t escape the fact that this is the church. Ministries that are conducted apart from the church die when their leadership dies (or moves, or changes strategies, or gets new vision, etc…). They are simply not sustainable. But when ministry is conducted in and through the church, there is lasting fruit. New believers are folded into that work. And when the US worker (or partnering church) leaves, the church will continue the ministry.

I don’t get to read a ton of books, but this is one that has so impacted my thinking and stirred my heart, that I am encouraging everyone to read it. It’s one of those books. I’ve got a stack of copies with me for my next journey to share with folks. I think it will disturb you too, in the best way possible. Order When Helping Hurts online.

by Bill Yarbrough

Reading Jerram Barrs’ book The Heart of Evangelism has been like a breath of fresh air for me, for a few reasons. The first is that evangelism has been so much a part of my life since my early days in the Jesus Movement. So I consider tools and perspectives that feed and equip the Church for that task to be gifts. Secondly, the book is rooted deeply in a Reformed and covenantal view of Scripture and the world—something I never had (or at least didn’t understand) in those early years. And thirdly, I love what Barrs writes in the first sentence of his introduction: “This is more than 30 years of reflection on what the New Testament teaches us about evangelism; and it is the fruit of more than 30 years of desiring to practice in some poor way what I have learned from that study.” It’s this kind of personal insight that makes this book sing.

There is an emphasis on the Spirit in this book that scratches an itch many of us have in our work around the globe. There has been a tendency to either ignore or minimize the Spirit’s work in many aspects of our ministries, mostly I believe in reaction to the extremes witnessed in parts of the charismatic and Pentecostal streams of the Church…continue reading this article from InVision.

by Keith R. Bucklen

Right now my church is basking in the afterglow of several short-term mission trips. And well it should! What a privilege to be a co-laborer (with the Lord and His servants) in the ministry of the gospel cross-culturally; and what a joy to imagine that God has used us for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. He has conferred on us a lofty position, to be sure.

But what about short-term missions? Is a week or two in a foreign country really worth it? The cost is substantial, especially when one compares the expenditures necessary to translocate a group of Americans to another country (in our case, another continent) with what that money could produce locally. Just think of the indigenous workforce who could accomplish the same tasks at a fraction of the cost …continue reading this article from InVision.

by, Basil Grafas

I used to pastor a small, rural church in another denomination. There was a lot I liked about the work. We had people come to Christ and lives were changed. I learned the value of repentance and the value of community. On the other hand, we were a highly autonomous congregation that had little if anything to do with any other church, foreign or domestic. That bothered me. And it started getting under my skin when I started preaching through the book of Revelation.

To be honest, I really did not want to do it. Any book that Calvin refused to write a commentary about is too much book for me. It was just that several people in the congregation told me that they would never ever read it, since it had all of those strange images and codes involved. Well, I got angry. The Hal Lindseys and Tim LaHayes had convinced us that the book was all about obscure references to the future and therefore was of little value now. But I had to see for myself. And what I found was not what I expected. I found a book written to church people about the church going through tough times.

Revelation is, if you can get over the confusing word-pictures, a very clear book that is meant to exhort and encourage the church to remain a faithful witness to a world that wishes to hate and persecute it. In other words, it is the ultimately missional book. It is about suffering, despised churches caught in the vise formed by Rome and recalcitrant Judaism, being exhorted to remain faithful (chapters 2-3). We are introduced to martyrs who want to know how long they have to keep this up (chapter 6). Then we find out that these people are not scattered rarities in the church—they are the norm. They are actually part of an army of faithful witnesses who herald the lordship of the Lamb over the world (chapter 7).   (Click here to continue reading this article)

by Rev. Tim Keller

Introduction
The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for 1) the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and 2) the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else—not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes—will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting. This is an eyebrow-raising statement. But to those who have done any study at all, it is not even controversial.

The normal response to discussions about church planting is something like this:

1. We already have plenty of churches that have lots and lots of room for all the new people who have come to the area. Let’s get them filled before we go off building any new ones.
2. Every church in this community used to be more full than it is now. The churchgoing public is a “shrinking pie.” A new church here will just take people from churches already hurting and weaken everyone.
3. Help the churches that are struggling first. A new church doesn’t help the ones we have that are just keeping their nose above water. We need better churches, not more churches.

These statements appear to be common sense to many people, but they rest on several wrong assumptions. The error of this thinking will become clear if we ask, “Why is church planting so crucially important?”

Because—

A. We want to be true to THE BIBLICAL MANDATE

1. Jesus’ essential call was to plant churches. Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is not just a call to make disciples but to baptize. In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshipping community with accountability and boundaries (cf. Acts 2:41-47). The only way to be truly sure you are increasing the number of Christians in a town is to increase the number of churches. Why? Much traditional evangelism aims to get a “decision” for Christ. Experience, however, shows us that many of these decisions disappear and never result in changed lives. Why? Many, many decisions are not really conversions, but often only the beginning of a journey of seeking God (other decisions are very definitely the moment of a new birth, but this differs from person to person). Only a person who is being evangelized in the context of an ongoing worshipping and shepherding community can be sure of finally coming home into vital, saving faith. This is why a leading missiologist like C. Peter Wagner can say, “Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven.” [1]

2. Paul’s whole strategy was to plant urban churches. The greatest missionary in history, St. Paul, had a rather simple, two-fold strategy. First, he went into the largest city of the region (cf. Acts 16:9, 12), and second, he planted churches in each city (cf. Titus 1:5-appoint elders in every town). Once Paul had done that, he could say that he had fully preached the gospel in a region and that he had no more work to do there (cf. Romans 15:19, 23). This means Paul had two controlling assumptions: a) that the way to most permanently influence a country was through its chief cities, and b) the way to most permanently influence a city was to plant churches in it. Once he had accomplished this in a city, he moved on. He knew that the rest that needed to happen would follow.

Response: “But,” many people say, “that was in the beginning. Now the country (at least our country) is filled with churches. Why is church planting important now?”

We also plant churches because—

B. We want to be true to THE GREAT COMMISSION. Some facts:

1. New churches best reach a) new generations, b) new residents, and c) new people groups. First (a) younger adults have always been disproportionately found in newer congregations. Long-established congregations develop traditions (such as time of worship, length of service, emotional responsiveness, sermon topics, leadership style, emotional atmosphere, and thousands of other tiny customs and mores) which reflect the sensibilities of long-time leaders from the older generations who have the influence and money to control the church life. This does not reach younger generations. Second, (b) new residents are almost always reached better by new congregations. In older congregations, it may require tenure of 10 years before you are allowed into places of leadership and influence, but in a new church, new residents tend to have equal power with long-time residents.

Last, (c) new socio-cultural groups in a community are always reached better by new congregations. For example, if new white-collar commuters move into an area where the older residents were farmers, it is likely that a new church will be more receptive to the myriad of needs of the new residents, while the older churches will continue to be oriented to the original social group. And new racial groups in a community are best reached by a new church that is intentionally multi-ethnic from the start. For example: if an all-Anglo neighborhood becomes 33% Hispanic, a new, deliberately bi-racial church will be far more likely to create “cultural space” for newcomers than will an older church in town. Finally, brand new immigrant groups nearly always can only be reached by churches ministering in their own language. If we wait until a new group is assimilated into American culture enough to come to our church, we will wait for years without reaching out to them.

[Note: Often, a new congregation for a new people group can be planted within the overall structure of an existing church. It may be a new Sunday service at another time, or a new network of house churches that are connected to a larger, already existing congregation. Nevertheless, although it technically may not be a new independent congregation, it serves the same function.]

In summary, new congregations empower new people and new peoples much more quickly and readily than can older churches. Thus they have always reached them with greater facility than long-established bodies, and always will. This means, of course, that church planting is not only for “frontier regions” or “pagan” countries that we want to see become Christian. Christian countries will have to maintain vigorous, extensive church planting simply to stay Christian!

2. New churches best reach the unchurched—period. Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10-15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other congregations. [2] This means that the average new congregation will bring 6-8 times more new people into the life of the Body of Christ than an older congregation of the same size.

So although established congregations provide many things that newer churches often cannot, older churches in general will never be able to match the effectiveness of new bodies in reaching people for the kingdom. Why would this be? As a congregation ages, powerful internal institutional pressures lead it to allocate most of its resources and energy toward the concerns of its members and constituents, rather than toward those outside its walls. This is natural and to a great degree desirable. Older congregations, therefore, have a stability and steadiness that many people thrive on and need. This does not mean that established churches cannot win new people. In fact, many non-Christians will only be reached by churches with long roots in the community and the trappings of stability and respectability.

However, new congregations, in general, are forced to focus on the needs of its non-members simply in order to get off the ground. So many of its leaders have come very recently from the ranks of the un-churched that the congregation is far more sensitive to the concerns of the non-believer. Also, in the first two years of our Christian walk, we have far more close, face-to-face relationships with non-Christians than we do later. Thus a congregation filled with people fresh from the ranks of the un-churched will have the power to invite and attract many more non-believers into the events and life of the church than will the members of the typical established body.

What does this mean practically? If we want to reach our city, should we try to renew older congregations to make them more evangelistic, or should we plant lots of new churches? But that question is surely a false either-or dichotomy. We should do both! Nevertheless, all we have been saying proves that, despite the occasional exceptions, the only wide-scale way to bring in lots of new Christians to the Body of Christ in a permanent way is to plant new churches.

To throw this into relief, imagine Town A and Town B and Town C are the same size, and they each have 100 churches of 100 persons each. But in Town A, all the churches are over 15 years old. As a result, the overall number of active Christian churchgoers in that town shrinks, even if four or five of the churches get very “hot” and double in attendance. In Town B, 5 of the churches are under 15 years old, and they, along with several older congregations, are winning new people to Christ, but this only offsets the normal declines of the older churches. Thus the overall number of active Christian churchgoers in that town stays the same. Finally, in Town C, 30 of the churches are under 15 years old. In this town, the overall number of active Christian churchgoers will be on a path to grow 50% in a generation. [3]

Response: “But,” many people say, “what about all the existing churches that need help? You seem to be ignoring them.”

Not at all. We also plant churches because—

C. We want to continually RENEW THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST.

It is a great mistake to think that we have to choose between church planting and church renewal. Strange as it may seem, the planting of new churches in a city is one of the very best ways to revitalize many older churches in the vicinity and renew the whole Body of Christ. Why?

1. First, new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body. There is plenty of resistance to the idea that we need to plant new churches to reach the constant stream of new groups, generations, and residents. Many congregations insist that all available resources should be used to find ways of helping existing churches reach them. However, there is no better way to teach older congregations about new skills and methods for reaching new people groups than by planting new churches. New churches have freedom to be innovative, and they become the “research and development” department for the whole Body in the city. Often the older congregations were too timid to try a particular approach or were absolutely sure it would “not work here.” But when the new church in town succeeds wildly with some new method, the other churches eventually take notice and get the courage to try it themselves.

2. Second, planting new churches is one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Body. In older congregations, leaders emphasize tradition, tenure, routine, and kinship ties. New congregations, on the other hand, attract a higher percentage of venturesome people who value creativity, risk, innovation, and future orientation. Many of these men and women would never be attracted or compelled into significant ministry apart from the appearance of these new bodies. Often older churches “box out” many people with strong leadership skills who cannot work in more traditional settings. New churches thus attract and harness many people in the city whose gifts otherwise would not be utilized in the work of the Body. These new leaders eventually benefit the Body in the city.

3. Third, new churches challenge other churches to self-examination. The success of new churches often challenges older congregations in general to evaluate themselves in substantial ways. Sometimes it is only in contrast with a new church that older churches can finally define their own vision, specialties, and identity. Often the growth of the new congregation gives the older churches hope that “it can be done,” and may even bring about humility and repentance for defeatist and pessimistic attitudes. Sometimes, new congregations can partner with older churches to mount ministries that neither could do by themselves.

4. Fourth, a new church may be an evangelistic feeder for a whole community. The new church often produces many converts who end up in older churches for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the new church is very exciting and outward facing but is also very unstable or immature in its leadership. Thus some converts cannot stand the tumultuous changes that regularly come through the new church and they move to an existing church. Sometimes the new church reaches a person for Christ, but the new convert quickly discovers that he or she does not fit the socio-economic make up of the new congregation, and gravitates to an established congregation where the customs and culture feels more familiar. Ordinarily, the new churches in a city produce new people not only for themselves, but for the older bodies as well.

Summary: Vigorous church planting is one of the best ways to renew the existing churches of a city, as well as the best single way to grow the whole Body of Christ in a city.

There is one more reason why it is good for the existing churches of the region to initiate or at least support the planting of churches in a given area.

We plant churches—

D. As an exercise in KINGDOM-MINDEDNESS

All in all, church planting helps an existing church the best when the new congregation is voluntarily “birthed” by an older “mother” congregation. Often the excitement, new leaders, ministries, members and income of a new church wash back into the mother church in various ways, strengthening and renewing it. Though there is some pain in seeing good friends and some leaders go away to form a new church, the mother church usually experiences a surge of high self-esteem and an influx of new enthusiastic leaders and members.

However, a new church in the community usually confronts churches with a major issue— the issue of kingdom-mindedness. New churches, as we have seen, draw most of their new members (up to 80%) from the ranks of the unchurched, but they will always attract some people out of existing churches. That is inevitable. At this point, the existing churches, in a sense, have a question posed to them: “Are we going to rejoice in the 80%—the new people that the kingdom has gained through this new church, or are we going to bemoan and resent the three families we lost to it?” In other words, our attitude to new church development is a test of whether our mindset is geared to our own institutional turf, or to the overall health and prosperity of the kingdom of God in the city.

Any church that is more upset by their own small losses rather than the kingdoms large gains is betraying its narrow interests. Yet, as we have seen, the benefits to older congregations of new church planting are very great, even if that may not be obvious initially.

SUMMARY

If we briefly glance at the objections to church planting in the introduction, we can now see the false premises beneath the statements. A. Assumes that older congregations can reach newcomers as well as new congregations. But to reach new generations and people groups will require both renewed older churches and lots of new churches. B. Assumes that new congregations will only reach current active churchgoers. But new churches do far better at reaching the unchurched, and thus they are the only way to increase the churchgoing “pie.” C. Assumes that new church planting will only discourage older churches. This is a possibility, but a new church, for a variety of reasons, is one of the best ways to renew and revitalize an older church. D. Assumes that new churches only work where the population is growing. Actually, they reach people wherever the population is changing. If new people are coming in to replace former residents, or new groups of people are coming in—even though the net population figure is stagnant—new churches are needed.

New church planting is the only way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city and one of the best ways to renew the whole Body of Christ. The evidence for this statement is strong—Biblically, sociologically, and historically. In the end, a lack of kingdom-mindedness may simply blind us to all this evidence. We must beware of that.

APPENDIX A: HISTORICAL LESSONS

If all this is true, there should be lots of evidence for these principles in church history—and there is.

In 1820, there was one Christian church for every 875 U.S. residents. But from 1860-1906, U.S. Protestant churches planted one new church for each population increase of 350 people, bringing the ratio by the start of WWI to just one church for every 430 persons. In 1906 over a third of all the congregations in the country were less than 25 years old. [4] As a result, the percentage of the U.S. population involved in the life of the church rose steadily. For example, in 1776, 17% of the U.S. population described themselves as “religious adherents,” but that rose to 53% by 1916. [5]

However, after WWI, especially among mainline Protestants, church planting plummeted, for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons was the issue of “turf.” Once the continental U.S. was covered by towns and settlements and churches and church buildings in each one, there was strong resistance from older churches to any new churches being planted in “our neighborhood.” As we have seen above, new churches are commonly very effective at reaching new people and growing for their first couple of decades. But the vast majority of U.S. congregations reach their peak in size during the first two or three decades of their existence and then remain on a plateau or slowly shrink.6 This is due to the factors mentioned above. They cannot assimilate new people or groups of people as well as new churches. However, older churches have feared the competition from new churches. Mainline church congregations, with their centralized government, were the most effective in blocking new church development in their towns. As a result, the mainline churches have shrunk remarkably in the last 20-30 years. [7]

What are the historical lessons? Church attendance and adherence overall in the United States is in decline and decreasing. This cannot be reversed in any other way than in the way it originally had been so remarkably increasing. We must plant churches at such a rate that the number of churches per 1,000 people begins to grow again, rather than decline, as it has since WWI.

Dr. Timothy Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City, and continues to serve that congregation as senior pastor.

1 C. Peter Wagner, Strategies for Growth (Glendale: Regal, 1987), p. 168.
2 Lyle Schaller, quoted in D. McGavran and G. Hunter, Church Growth: Strategies that Work (Nashville:Abingdon, 1980), p. 100. See C. Kirk Hadaway, New Churches and Church Growth in the Southern Baptist Convention (Nashville:Broadman, 1987).
3 See Lyle Schaller, 44 Questions for Church Planters (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991), p.12. Schaller talks about “The 1% Rule.” Each year, any association of churches should plant new congregations at the rate of 1% of their existing total—otherwise, that association will be in decline. That is just “maintenance.” If an association wants to grow 50%+, it must plant 2-3% per year.
4 Ibid, pp.14-26.
5 Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776-1990 (New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1992) p.16.
6 Schaller, 44 Questions, p.23.
7 See Schaller’s case that a lack of church planting is one major cause of the decline of mainline Protestantism. Ibid, p.24-26. Finke and Stark show how independent churches, such as the Baptists, who have had freedom to plant churches without interference, have proliferated their numbers. Churching, p.248.

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by Dr. Paul Kooistra

Much has been written and discussed in recent years about church-planting movements. There is also significant debate about just what it is. It has proven an elusive subject to describe with precision or finality.

What follows is not intended to be definitive, but rather is an attempt to move us toward a more complete and accurate understanding regarding the key characteristics of a churchplanting movement. I hope that it deepens our understanding and agreement, and as a result spurs us to further dialogue and action.

A DEFINITION

A church-planting movement (CPM) is a God-glorifying, God-centered work of His grace whereby the Holy Spirit energizes indigenous leaders to plant a cluster of churches with a common vision and purpose to reproduce themselves often by means of evangelizing and discipling a specific region or people group.

Such movements balance orthodoxy, unity, and liberty and are built upon indigenous structures and institutions as well as local funding and, especially, native worship. The focus of these movements is the transformation of all of life by encouraging the fulfillment of a culture’s highest good through the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

COMMENTARY

Church-Planting Movement: Donald McGavran coined the concept of “people movements” to Christ in his landmark book The Bridges of God first published in the United Kingdom by World Dominion press, 1955. Basic to his argument was the opinion that Western Christianity, because of its dominant individualistic world and life view, is blinded to how most people come to Christ. Historically, the vast majority of converts have come in groups, tribes, villages, ethnic groups, as a single unit. Chuo Wee Hiar writes, the Western self-conscious states, “I think, therefore I am.” For most of the rest of the world it is, “I participate, therefore I am.” [1]

People Movements: Don McGavran argued that people movements have five considerable advantages. First, they create permanent churches in many places through the movement of God’s Spirit. Second, they are naturally indigenous. Third, they are a spontaneous and natural expansion of the church. Fourth, they have enormous possibility for growth. The fifth advantage is that these movements provide a sound pattern of becoming a Christian. People and their environment change through the gospel from the inside out.

God-glorifying/God-centered: A CPM cannot be built on the foundation of missiology, church-planting methodology, cultural anthropology, or any other important discipline. As David Garrison writes, “…a church-planting movement is not an end in itself. The end of all of our efforts is for God to be glorified.” [2] I would further argue that any kingdom work that is not totally dependent on God with a single purpose of magnifying Christ will, in the end,
be found hollow and with little enduring existence.

Holy Spirit: Gary Waldecker has written a very excellent book entitled Toward a Theology of Movements: Missiology from a Kingdom Perspective. This is a fine work which I believe could be widely useful. He develops a theology of movements around seven subordinate movements. The third, the outward movement, is a work of God’s Spirit whereby we drink of Christ, and one small sip produces whole rivers which flow out of us to bless those around us. Gary states,

The task before us is not difficult—it is impossible. However, the Lord will do the impossible through us. As the Lord commanded the man with the withered hand to stretch it out, as He commanded the paralytic to stand and walk, and as He commanded Peter to walk to Him on the water, so we must attempt the impossible, trusting only in the supernatural power of Christ, refusing dependence on “safer” methods. This is the work that can only be accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit. [3]

Indigenous: One of the most important, if not the most important element of a CPM, is that it is mainly indigenous. For a church to impact a culture, it must be of that culture. This seems from the beginning to be built into God’s design for His body on earth—the Church. Modern students of New Testament manuscripts first thought that the Greek, which was much corrupted from Classical Greek, was the consequence of human errors caused by many years of copying error. Not until Egyptian papyrus manuscripts were studied, did scholars realize that New Testament Greek was simply the common marketplace language of the day. In other words, God’s holy and inspired Word was written in the common “indigenous” Greek of the marketplace. A church movement must be no less indigenous.

First, in the development of leadership, God does not work outside of people, and He always raises up leaders within any people He is working. It is for this reason that a biblical pattern for ministerial training is best served when it is an integral part of real ministry. To take men out of a certain sub-culture and train them in an academic seminary so removes them from the people they came from that they often cannot reach these same people when they return. Secondly, the church must have indigenous direction. A culture is transformed by those who understand, love, and can critique that culture. Culture is so much a part of who we are and what we think that, like language, those who develop within its bounds will better understand its nuances. Finally, for a church to last, it must be indigenously supported. History is full of examples of unhelpful dependence. This does not mean that there is not a place for outside financial assistance. Chapters eight and nine of II Corinthians are all about the churches of Macedonia giving to help the church in Jerusalem. Outside giving must be strategic giving, and cannot replace or supercede indigenous giving. If it does, then when that funding no longer exists, the structures of the church will also cease.

A cluster of churches within a specific people or region with a common vision: Some have criticized any emphasis such as this as unbiblical. It is no doubt true that to be the body of Christ, an exclusionary goal for a church cannot be tolerated. If, on the other hand, the singleness of focus is for outreach to a people that need evangelization and discipling, then it makes a lot of sense. Things usually don’t happen until someone gives his or her full attention to the matter. In the same manner, a people is usually not reached until someone says, “This is my passion. I will give my life to reach these people.”

Reproducing: George Patterson, who has specialized in church multiplication, teaches that healthy churches are “born to reproduce.” [4] Such churches emphasize obedience to Christ and the training of leaders who believe that ministry is always reaching out. The Spirit-led church focuses on those outside, not inside, the church. It is not an accident that the Great Commission reveals the last words of Christ to His Church. This is the purpose of the Church. To rivet the energy of the Church inward can only lead to spiritual constipation.

Balance: A church must be structured exclusively according to God’s word. The church belongs to Him, and He alone has the authority to call it into existence and to shape it for the purpose of reflecting His holy character. When churches add either the best notions or desires of men to biblical orthodoxy, they soon reflect the earthly culture they are a part of and little of the heavenly ethos for which they were created. At the same time, orthodoxy must not kill biblical unity and love. Christ says that a new law or command will rule His kingdom: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34-35). Doctrine and unity cannot trump one another. They must serve one another, and a church with no love is no more a biblical church than is a church that ignores scriptural teaching to embrace the philosophies of men. Finally, a church must possess liberty. Church-planting movements have always had elements of surprise in them. As we have already stated, we cannot dictate to the Holy Spirit how He will proceed. Worship, fellowship, and structures must reflect Scripture, but in the eternal wisdom of the Holy Spirit they will also reflect the culture. God, whose nature cannot be fully measured, is also the God of variety.

Fulfillment of a culture: Here the choice of words reflects the debate over how culture and faith intersect and even overlap. This is never an easy question. In the Jerusalem Council Paul uses the argument, in opposition to the Judaizers, that not even Titus, who was with Paul, was compelled by the apostles to be circumcised (Galatians 2:3). Paul claims Titus has become a living example that the gospel and the culture were in conflict. Nevertheless, earlier in Paul’s ministry, he had Timothy, his other son in Christ, circumcised in order to enhance the gospel within the culture (Acts 16:3). When does one take a prophetic posture, challenging the culture for the sake of the gospel, and when does one accommodate the culture for the sake of the gospel? Obviously, this is not always an easy decision, and one needs all the wisdom of God’s Word and the guidance of His Holy Spirit. We must acknowledge that the question of culture is a very sensitive issue today within the world of missions. In the past I have used the phrase, “change culture,” but this suggests a lack of appreciation for a culture in which the gospel is preached. Such an emphasis can also have the effect of making the gospel look foreign and hostile to the customs and history of an indigenous people. Phrases such as “penetrate” or “impact” have seemed to me to be more acceptable, but they also contain a somewhat “in your face” connotation as one considers the dynamics of faith and culture. The phrase “fulfillment of a culture” may help us to get closer to a biblical perspective on this issue. Obviously if the gospel is God’s redeeming work within His fallen creation, then all of life, including culture, must be somehow altered by this mighty act of God. I am suggesting that when God calls His creation back to Himself, He intends not to destroy that creation, but to restore it to its original glory. Therefore, when the gospel affects a culture, that culture is moved toward all that it was intended to be. Life is elevated, liberty is heartened, government serves, integrity is valued; even the environment is more universally enjoyed and protected. Human cultures, all of them, were affected by the fall. The gospel reverses that decay.

Dr. Paul Kooistra served as president of Covenant Theological Seminary from 1983 – 1994, and since that time has served the PCA as Coordinator of Mission to the World.

1 Chuo Wee Hiar, “Evangelization of Whole Families,” Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, Edited by Ralph D. Winter and Steven G. Hawthorne, 1999, p. 615
2 byhisgrace.com/wortega/CPM.htm, William Ortega
3 Gary Waldecker, Toward a Theology of Movements: Missiology from a Kingdom Perspective (summary version), p. 14
4 George Patterson, “The Spontaneous Multiplication of Churches,” Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, Edited by Ralph D. Winter and Steven Hawthorne, p. 604

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by Dr. Paul Kooistra

Mission to the World, as an arm of the Presbyterian Church in America, a confessional church, does Reformed and covenantal missions around the world. The Reformed faith, in its simplest definition, is God-centered faith. God alone is the source of all that exists and everything that exists does so for the glory of Him alone.

At the heart of what it means to be Reformed are the doctrines of grace. Central to these doctrines are the utter helplessness of man and the absolute trustworthiness of God. We should not forget that the doctrines of grace produce the virtues of the Christian life—love, humility, understanding, and compassion. By emphasizing these Christian virtues as an important aspect of what it means to be Reformed, we can develop a posture of being Reformed in theology and character in a warm and winsome way.

The great doctrine of sovereign grace, the truth that God saves men, is foundational to a theological understanding of missions. Neglect of this truth, which is found in the Scriptures and summarized in our confessional standards, cripples missions and reduces it to a human enterprise, seeking to “help” God. Missions is a divine enterprise, wherein God commands and graciously accepts the obedient participation of man. When people respond to the gospel, it is neither because of their responsiveness nor because of the obedience of the missionary; it is because God found them that they are responsive. The truth that God chooses His people, some believe, discourages missions. On the contrary, this truth is the only real ground for missions.

The Reformed faith also teaches the finitude and sinfulness of our estate. It underlines our absolute dependence on the Spirit of God to bring regeneration to those we long to see embrace Christ. Nothing is more exciting than to see someone come to faith. When God is pleased to use us as His instruments to bring about new life in His people, we are well aware of the fact that it is God’s Spirit alone that can bring regeneration, repentance, and faith.

We believe that man is totally depraved, that is, that he cannot produce any spiritual life that would move him toward God. We shall, therefore, marvel far more in our own salvation, which is beyond our comprehension and is fully a gracious act from a loving God. We also understand in a deeper way that disobedience characterizes every part of a culture: politics, art, and social life as well as religious life. Total depravity underlines the importance of understanding a culture and all of its parts in order to bring the gospel to the people of that culture. We do not, however, put our faith in our strategic plans, but are open to what God will do with us and through us as His ambassadors.

We believe in unconditional election. We, therefore, look more to Christ and His gospel message for our mission activity and far less to the gifts that He has given us or to the environment in which we work.

We believe in limited atonement. We, therefore, have a far greater sense of belonging to God and believing that the One who created the universe also created us and saved us to be His kingdom instruments in this world. Rather than limiting our efforts to bring the gospel to others, acceptance of this truth compels us to scatter the seed wherever we can, believing that God has chosen His people in every tongue, tribe and nation.

We believe in irresistible grace. We do not, therefore, run from those places where missionary activity seems very difficult. God calls some to plow in concrete and others to turn fertile soil that was prepared in the past by others. Reliance on His Spirit’s guidance is an antidote to our fleshly desire only to concentrate our efforts where it is easy to plant churches and where we see a large response to the gospel.

We believe in the perseverance of the saints. Our activities, therefore, have a great measure of the joy of eternity and the everlasting fellowship we share with God. We entrust those whom God has brought to faith far more into His hands and less into our programs. We do not see the Church as a fortress in which to hide, but rather a training school from which to send those whom God has brought to faith out into the world to continue His great redemptive plan.

Our commitment to Reformed theology is based on the fact that it is biblical. It is drawn from the heart of God to us, and without it there can be no lasting blessing from God. When we speak of the Reformed faith, we are talking about those truths of God and man, sin and grace, love and judgment, which find their basis in Scripture and which we as a denomination embrace in our Westminster Confession of Faith and its Larger and Shorter catechisms.

The effects of sin are pervasive; men and women are not only harmed by sin, they are dead in it. Many will not embrace the biblical doctrines of election, calling, and regeneration, but evidence for the complete lostness of mankind, and therefore the absolute necessity of these doctrines, is everywhere. Our emphasis is one of full conviction that the doctrines of the Reformed faith are the truest expression of biblical faith and what the world needs to hear. We shall stress a faith that grips all of life, and we shall encourage all stations in life as a sacred calling.

We will admit that there have been times when the Reformed faith has been held in an unloving and critical fashion. If we are going to build a Reformed church in the world, there must be within that movement a tolerance for diversity. We must resist going beyond Scripture and imposing our own definitions on what it means to be Reformed. We know that we do not have the final word on every issue.

Finally, the way our theology is applied and expressed is a measure of the biblicalness of its content. We hold firmly to our positions while embracing other godly men and women who disagree with us. Simply put, if the Reformed faith is biblical faith, then any theology that is not expressed in love is neither Reformed nor biblical!

COVENANT THEOLOGY

To emphasize covenant theology is to emphasize the grace-conceived, grace-established, and grace-perfected reality of the Church and the Church’s mission activity.

When God chose Israel, and therefore the Church, He did so for no reason that was conditional in or inherent in His people (Deuteronomy 7:7). The covenant established with Abraham in Genesis 15 was in all of its outward manifestations an ancient, Mideastern contract, but in fact it was not a typical transaction of that day. Only God passed through the aisle between the animals. In other words, God was saying, “I alone am making and can make this covenant with my people.” If we can drink deeply from the truth of covenant theology, we shall be able to reorganize our priorities, so that the glory of God becomes the single most important passion in the life and work of the Church. The driving force of our ministry will not be a market-driven strategic plan, but rather the vision that God may be glorified among the people of all nations (Romans 1:5).

Seen from a covenant perspective, the doctrines of grace—especially election—are not viewed as a privileged position of safety from those who are lost, but rather a grace-centered relationship which empowers God’s people to engage in mission service to the world. The arena of God’s saving work is all of His creation. God has called His people by His covenant into a special relationship with Him in order to bring all of creation back from its broken state to its right relationship with God.

The Presbyterian Church in America, through its mission agency, Mission to the World, focuses on church planting because the Church is the corporate body that God has brought into being by His covenant. The saving work of God cannot be reduced to only a personalized salvation between God and individuals. It is within the covenant community of the Church that we experience one of the most dynamic living realities of the power of Christ. As Lord of the Church, He lives within the corporate body as Prophet, Priest, and King. He is the God-revealer, God-savior, and God-ruler over His people.

Mission activity does not end with conversion. Our goal is always the establishment of a vibrant, worshiping community, the church—a body of believers that is able to reproduce itself through mission activity of its own, and one that is able to make a life-changing impact within the lost and fallen culture in which God has placed it.

The covenant God has made with His people always has a two-fold purpose. God has called His people for worship, and that worship motivates the Church for ministry. We must avoid the temptation to focus only on nurture at the expense of ministry or vice versa. The life of the covenant community must always be balanced with the Church’s responsibility for the needs of the world.

Who belongs to the covenant community of God? There is great debate on this matter within evangelical Christianity. We believe, however, that the teaching of Scripture on this matter is very clear. All who believe by faith alone on Christ for salvation, and their children, are participants in the covenant promises. We do not believe in baptismal regeneration or in presumptive regeneration. That is, we do not believe that because a child has been baptized, or because his parents are believers in Christ, the child is automatically a member of the elect of God. On the other hand, the covenant promises have always been for those who have believed and their children. This is true in the Old Testament (Genesis 17:7), and what is true in the Old Testament, we believe must be true in the New Testament. At no time does God say that He has changed the extent of the covenant, although He does tell us that He has changed the sign. To remove the covenant promises from the children of believers would be to reduce the covenant in the New Testament, when in fact the New Testament is the fullness or fulfillment of that which was first promised to Abraham.

The covenant commission of the Old Testament was that the people of God were to teach faithfully the commandments of God to their children at all times and in all experiences of life (Deuteronomy 6:6-8). The covenant commission of the New Testament is just as one would expect—an expansion or a fulfillment of the Commission in the Old Testament. The people of God are to reach out to the peoples of all nations, baptizing them into the Church and teaching them to apply the commandments of God to all of life (Matthew 28:19-20).

Dr. Paul Kooistra served as president of Covenant Theological Seminary from 1983 – 1994, and since that time has served the PCA as Coordinator of Mission to the World.

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