Equipping Churches to Plant Churches
We describe the ministries of Mission Alive within the framework of our three major tasks of our ministry. These ministry tasks are to . . .
- equip church planters,
- provide church planter care, and
- work with churches to plant new churches.
This Mission Alive Update describes the final ministry task, our ministry of equipping churches to plant churches.
We have found that many Churches of Christ are hesitant about, even fearful of, church planting. They are apprehensive that church planting will draw talented leadership and finances away from them and into the daughter church. Becoming a missionary, sending church is not part of their DNA. Seldom, if ever, have they experienced the dynamic of equipping leaders within the local church to both go and stay, thus empowering both the mother and daughter churches. They have failed to conceive that the giving of self, as God gave his Son, is the essential core to Christianity and a quality of a missional church.
A major task of Mission Alive is, therefore, to build what Bill Carpenter, church planter of the Arcadia Church of Christ in Louisville, Kentucky, calls a “climate for church planting.” Last year Bill came to the Dallas-Fort Worth Church Planting Workshop and was touched by the Spirit of God to organize such a workshop in his own area of the United States. He organized a group of Christian leaders from surrounding churches to pray and plan for the Mid-America Church Planting Workshop.
Bill’s initiative led to the Mid-America Church Planting Workshop, held at the Okolona Church of Christ in Louisville, on March 18-19. Bill wrote that during the workshop, “We were taught the right motivation for church planting; how to transition to become church planting churches; and a practical strategy for planting a new church.”
Jay Jarboe, minister of the Sunset Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas; Bryan Barrett, preaching minister of the Southside Church of Christ in Lexington, Kentucky, and I served as major presenters. Bill Carpenter also encouraged us to “Carry on the Work of Jesus.” Finally, Mike Boyle, elder of the Westport Road Church of Christ in Louisville, presented an elder’s perspective on church planting.
I was especially touched by Mike’s presentation. He told us that churches, like any other organization, have cycles of Birth, Growth, Maturity, and Decline and Death and must rebirth themself in order to continue. “Take a look,” he said, “at the Fortune 500 list of 50 (or even 25) years ago and it is startling to see that most of these highly successful companies no longer exist! Once any organization meets its maturity stage (the above cited stage where they look the most successful), it is already becoming stagnant, and has lost focus on its environment and its real reason for existing. Mature organizations focus on programs” rather than on their purpose for being. Churches, like other institutions, must rebirth themselves in order to continue (Speech, Mid-America Church Planting Workshop, March 20, 2005).
During the final debriefing time, Jay Jarboe asked three incisive questions: What “Aha! Amen!” moments did you have? What have you seen the Lord doing in this workshop? What is it going to take to flip the ratio? Here are some responses:
What “Aha! Amen!” moments did you have?
- We must look at North America as a mission field.
- We must rebirth ourselves by returning to our original core values.
- We must plant churches that incarnate God’s eternal truths in contemporary culture.
- We must become a cross-formed movement thus enriching our understandings of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
What have you seen the Lord doing in this workshop?
- We have seen the power of dreaming dreams.
- We have seen God using like-minded leaders from different local churches harmoniously working together to make plans.
- “I am still in the cocoon being shaped by God. He ain’t finished with me yet.”
- “God is bigger than any of us.”
- “God has brought us together for such a time as this.”
- “We should not hear the voice of the 10 Israelite spies who doubted God’s ability to give them the promised land.”
- “We have gone through our 40 years in the wilderness. God is ready to take us into the promised land.”
What is it going to take to flip the ratio?
- “We have never experienced a long-term, on-going relationship of local churches. Church planting should become an area of cooperation.”
- “We must become a point area for Mission Alive working with them to equip our churches and church planters to plant churches.”
After the workshop Bill Carpenter wrote, “It was encouraging to see young and older participants eager to see the Kingdom grow. There was good interest as we were challenged. We realized the need to expand our vision to try to reach a lost world. Seeds were sown in good hearts. Pray that our churches allow these seeds to grow and produce fruit - new missional churches.”
On Thursday, April 14, the developing Mission Alive Strategy Team for this area will meet. Members of the team will be 8 or 9 who were involved in the workshop. Items to be discussed will include how to become an effective Strategy Team, how to encourage one new church planting in the area, and how to build a climate for church planting in area churches. We appreciate Bill’s leadership in this Louisville/Lexington area.
If you are interested in learning more about developing a Strategy Team and a Church Planting Workshop for your area, read http://www.missionalive.org/default.asp?id=99. [That page has been removed from this site.]
Three Church Planting Workshops have already been scheduled. We invite you to attend one of them:
- August 19-20: Southeast Church Planting Workshop, North Atlanta Church of Christ, Atlanta, Georgia
- August 26-27: Dallas-Fort Worth Church Planting Workshop, South MacArthur Church of Christ, Irving, Texas
- March, 2006: Gulf-Coast Church Planting Workshop, Houston, Texas