Today, I am releasing my latest e-book Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps. 

This 62-page work is designed to encourage and provide some guidance for pastors considering such missionary work. While some elements of this book will be of value to pastors who are already leading their churches in church planting, this resource was not written with them in mind.  The content is very basic.  It is written for those approaching the starting line–not those  already in the race.

Chapters include:

• Seven Reasons for Leading Your Church in Church Planting
• The Other Wing of the Airplane
• Some Resources to Get You Started
• Avoiding the Nestea Plunge
• Five Steps for Vision Casting for Multiplication
• Anticipating Objections to Church Planting

Each chapter concludes with questions to assist with developing and taking contextualized action steps.

This work is FREE for the taking.

My only request–if you would please–is that you would be kind enough to subscribe to my blog feed and tell at least three other people about this free resource (tweeting it to your millions of followers will suffice).

I truly appreciate your assistance in spreading the word on this book.

The book is available in pdf, Kindle, and Epub formats.  I prefer the pdf.  At this point in time, Kindle and Epub remove some of the aesthetic value of the book.

So, take it, use it, give it away, make photocopies of it, tweet it, etc.!

GET THE PDF HERE: Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps

GET THE KINDLE and EPUB VERSIONS HERE: Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps

If you get a chance, please let me know how you are using this book.  I always look forward to hearing from you guys out there.

If you did not get a copy of the other e-book I gave away last month, you may find it HERE.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now, I recognize this is a strange statement for a church planting professor to make, especially one who has written books and articles on this topic.  So, let me explain.

No Command

There is no command in the Bible to go into all the world and plant churches. The Church is never told to plant churches until the end of the age or search out all people groups and plant churches among them.

It seems everywhere we turn today, both churches and mission agencies in North America and outside this continent, are training and sending missionaries to plant multiplying churches across the globe. Over the past twenty years in North America and Europe, numerous books and articles have been published addressing this topic. Conferences and practical resources are being provided every year to potential church planters. More and more seminaries are offering courses and emphases in church planting.

Then why is there so much talk about church planting if there is no scriptural mandate?

Missionary Endeavor

Our Lord is very clear about the Great Commission.  The Church is to make disciples of all nations (literally, “peoples,” not nation-states). The best way to fulfill this mandate of evangelizing, baptizing, and teaching obedience is through the planting of contextualized churches among the various people groups and population segments of the world. For it is in the process of evangelizing, baptizing, and teaching that local churches are planted.  Church planting is a missionary endeavor.  Our Lord gave the Great Commission before his ascension; and it was the apostolic Church that later followed in obedience, setting the example of church planting for others to follow.

Start in the Fields, not the Barns

Biblical church planting is evangelism that results in new churches.  But, churches can be planted with little to no evangelism being done.

For example, if our annual goal is to plant 12 churches, then all we need to do is gather some long-term Kingdom citizens together into twelve groups, lead them to covenant together as 12 local churches, and we have accomplished our goal.  And if we do this, people will sing our praises and invite us to speak about church planting, telling them how they can plant 12 churches in a year.  And no one will ask us about making disciples.

But it’s not about church planting.  We are called to make disciples—and the first step in making disciples is doing evangelism.  For it is out of a disciple making movement that churches are birthed (e.g., Acts 13-14).

Unfortunately, most church planters in North America are more involved in gathering together long-term Kingdom citizens than doing evangelism that results in new churches.

Try This

Let me give you a little exercise.  The next time you hear about churches being planted, I want to encourage you to be radically biblical and simply ask, “How many people recently came into the Kingdom of God before these newly planted church came into existence?”  If you are talking with church planters in North America, do not be surprised to find out that the answer is generally few to none.  Rather, than finding a church planter who saw a church birthed out of the harvest field, you are more likely to find a church planted by the shuffling of the saints around in the Body of Christ.

Today, we plant the church first, and then (hopefully) lead the church to do evangelism.

If our goal is to plant a church, then our goal has been accomplished.  Let’s have a party and celebrate.

But it’s not about planting churches.

The Coolness Factor

But planting churches is cool!  It is cool to quickly start a worship gathering with high quality music and preaching.  It is cool to quickly develop church programs for kids, families, outreach, missions, etc.  It is cool to be able to write to our partners in the ministry and show them “tangible” things that prove we have been at work—making good use of the resources they have sacrificed for our labors, and hoping such partnerships will continue.

But it’s not about planting churches.

Our mandate is about evangelism, baptisms, and teaching those new believers how to be the local church in their context.  It is about teaching those new believers how to gather for worship.  It is about teaching those new believers how to preach, how to pastor, how to lead children, families.  It is about teaching those new believers how to do missions.  There is not much that others can see, feel, and hear in the early days of a church recently birthed from the harvest. . .

. . . not much other than a group of new Kingdom Citizens, agreeing to learn and live by this new Kingdom Ethic in covenant community.  And this is messy, oftentimes slow, gives us little to report to those back home, and is definitely not cool.

Planting churches is cool. . . making disciples from out of the harvest that will become local churches is not.

But it’s not about planting churches, is it?

While I originally thought I would simply set up the links to the presentations, I soon came to believe that I needed to share some information about this new network.  And since the group is comprised of Southern Baptists, I am specifically directing today’s post to those within my tribe.

If you are a Southern Baptist leader involved in church planting, then you need to keep an eye on what is happening among this group of brothers and sisters in Mississippi.  I was very surprised, blessed, convicted, and encouraged by what I saw and experienced.  After spending time with the leaders and participants, I am convinced that exciting things for the Kingdom are happening in Mississippi, things below most of our radars.

(Some people, however, have super-sensitive radars.  For even at this inaugural event, I encountered other Southern Baptist leaders–from outside of Mississippi–who were present to observe and learn what was taking place in this new network.)

The One8 Network is primarily located in the northern part of the state, but another like-minded network is presently developing in the central region as well.  I expect others will follow across Mississippi, and that similar networks will quickly begin to pop up across the Southern Baptist Convention and the Canadian National Baptist Convention.

Here is some information about One8:

ONE8 is a cooperating network of likeminded SBC churches across Mississippi and the Mid-South working together to advance the gospel by planting new churches and equipping existing churches for multiplication. Along with the Mississippi Baptist Convention, our vision is to partner with churches, associations, and state conventions to plant at least 30 churches over the next three years. Through an intensive application and assessment process, we seek to provide church planters with internships, coaching, networking, and resources.

The convictions of this network are closely aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention:

ONE8 Church Planting Network is a committed partner with the SBC. All ONE8 Network Churches and Church Plants affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.  The ONE8 Church Planting Network also affirms the following distinctives:

• We believe in the Sufficiency of Scripture

• We Practice Systematic Exposition

• We Seek Regenerate Church Membership

• We are Committed to Biblical Community

• We are Committed to Practicing a Biblical Worldview

• We are Committed to Evangelism, Missional Living, and Church Planting.

140 participants were present this week, with the majority representing younger Southern Baptists.  The meeting had to be moved to a larger location due to an unexpected increase in the number of participants.  The organizers invited several plenary speakers, representing church planters, missiologists, and pastors, as well as numerous speakers leading breakout sessions.

I spoke on the following topics, with each linked to my Power Point slides (.pptx files):

The Good News: Bridging the Gap through Evangelism

Equipping the Church Planting Family

Who Can Bridge the Gap? The Barnabas Factors: Essential Practices of Church Planting Team Members

I do not claim to know the future of this nascent network.  But, if Monday and Tuesday are representative of the cooperation, enthusiasm, and missional engagement to come, then I am very excited about its future potential.

Mississippi Baptists are offering something to younger, Southern Baptist church planters, involving at least partnership/cooperation, respect, wisdom, assessment, coaching, training, encouragement, and accountability.  They have invited them to pull up a chair and have a major seat at the table.

Laurie Fortunak Nichols, A. Scott Moreau, and Gary Corwin have done an excellent job editing this book.  The work consists of six sections: 1) The Church Planter; 2) Biblical Guidelines for Church Planting; 3) The Church Plant; 4) Church Planting Strategy; 5) Partnership and Church Planting; and 6) Case Studies.

The editors sent me a pdf of the first 16 pages of the book that includes my Foreword (don’t let this keep you from purchasing the book), Table of Contents, and the Introduction.  I have linked this document HERE to give you an idea of the contents of the book.

Let me strongly encourage you to get a copy of this book.  It contains the “best of the best” of EMQ’s articles on church planting.

At times, we all need a change of perspective for God’s glory.

As I was reflecting on the numbers of church planters with whom I have worked, taught, and equipped over the years, I could not help but think about the need for most church planters to see things from a different perspective.  Consider the following:

• What do you see whenever you observe a field of 100 people who do not know the goodness and grace of Jesus?

Most church planters see a future with some of these people declaring God’s glory.

But why only some?  What about a future of all of them declaring God’s glory?

• What do you see whenever you observe a field of 100 people who do not know the goodness and grace of Jesus?

Most church planters see a future local church.

But why only one local church? What about 4, 5, 7, and maybe even 10 churches in that field of  100 people?  Do you see the churches yet to be birthed by the Holy Spirit and then to spend years growing in sanctification?

• What do you see whenever you observe a field of 100 people who do not know the goodness and grace of Jesus?

Most church planters see a future church with them serving as the pastors.

But why are you the pastor?  What if in that field of lostness there are several pastors yet to oversee those new churches?  Do you see men coming to faith and being recognized by those churches as their pastors?  Do you see these pastors in need of your missionary ministry to equip and release them to be the shepherds the Spirit has called them to be?  Can you see yourself shepherding the shepherds?

• What do you see whenever you observe a field of 100 people who do not know the goodness and grace of Jesus?

Most church planters see a future church that is involved in planting other churches, usually 2, 3, or 4 years or more after the first church is birthed.

But why so long?  Can you see the immediate multiplication of disciples, churches, and pastors that results in the rapid dissemination of the gospel across social networks, spanning the 4 billion people on earth that also do not know the goodness and grace of Jesus?

Why is such a change in  perspective so important?  Because it challenges us to return to the Scriptures for the theological foundations on which our missiology and church planting methods are to be constructed.  Such a change requires us to ask the Lord of the Harvest what He has to say about a field of lostness, church planting, and the raising up and training of pastors.  A shift in perspective leads us to ask if we are being good stewards of the mysteries of the gospel that have been entrusted to our care, for our time, according to the Word of God.  We are confronted with the question, “Are we doing good things for the Kingdom at the sacrifice for doing the best things for the Kingdom?”

Scrooge had to have a shock to his system before he changed his perspective.  Let’s change ours now before Marley shows up.

• Now, what do you see whenever you observe a field of 100 people who do not know the goodness and grace of Jesus?

You will want to keep an eye out for the videos of this three-day event.  They are likely to be on-line soon.

During this event, the participants shared blessings, challenges, and what they believed is working well and working not so well.  They agreed on some matters and agreed to disagree on other matters.

I am very thankful that over the past several years, a growing number of people are seeing the importance of church planting and college students.  As a college student (many moons ago), I was heavily involved in the Baptist Student Union on my college campus.  At that time, no one was talking about church planting and college students.  At best, we talked about evangelism and getting new believers assimilated in local churches.

I recognize there are numerous concerns related to collegiate church planting, but the strengths far outweigh the limitations.  In this post, I want to share with you why I am supportive of such missionary activities.

Church planting is church planting whether it is among a highly heterogeneous population or homogeneous population.  The purposes and principles are the same regardless of the location, demographic, or people group.

I am pro-collegiate church planting because I am pro-church planting. An apologetic for collegiate church planting is in many ways the same apologetic for church planting in general.  However, because this notion of collegiate church planting is still a foreign way of thinking to many of us, I want to share with you a few collegiate-church-planting-specific reasons why I am pro-collegiate church planting:

1) College students need Jesus, and only a small percentage have Him.

2) There is a great amount of passion that many young adults have for Jesus and His mission. We need to respond to this moment in their lives.  They need to be equipped and released for ministry.  They need empowerment not permission to do the Great Commission.

3) Students are impressionable. We have the potential to model before them what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  Closely connected to this is that we have the opportunity to model a highly reproducible, and healthy, expression of the local church.  Such an approach to church planting has the potential to spread rapidly with such a responsive group.

4) Closely related to their zeal is the fact that many students can be raised up quickly as healthy leaders.

5) Many students do not have all of the life responsibilities that come with time, making them highly mobile. They are more likely to carry the gospel and multiply churches across the world faster than most older adults.

6) Students can be challenged to major in fields that will place them in positions of influence in the global marketplace. Obtaining such credentials would allow them to have a natural platform for ministry while being able to support themselves financially as they plant churches.

7) Many of the world’s unreached and least reached peoples are on college campuses and open to hearing about Jesus.

8 ) Keeping church expressions highly biblical (and simple) allows international students to develop translatable skills they can apply when they return to their countries that are not open to the gospel.

Keep an eye on what the Spirit is doing on and near the college campuses of the world.  The students of today are the most influential leaders in the world of later today.

Here are a few of my resources to assist you in this area:

Article: P.L.A.N.T.S: Equipping Seminary and College Students in Church Planting

Links: Collegiate Missions

Podcast: Record Number of International Students in US Higher Education

Post: International Students

Post: Students and Global Evangelization

You can find the previous posts in this series listed at the end of this post.

By far, the best resource I have found containing information on overcoming objections is The Dynamic Daughter Church Planting Handbook (DCPI, 1999) by Paul Becker, Mark Williams, and Jim Carpenter.  These men address and respond to numerous objections to church planting.  I cite from their work when I address this topic in my book Discovering Church Planting.  Here is also an excellent paper from Grady Smith on Addressing Objections to Church Planting.  Grady wrote this paper for me for a doctoral colloquium I was teaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Pastors, be prepared to respond to the following objections before casting your vision for church planting:

• Why do we need to plant churches?
• There are already enough churches here.
• We need to concentrate on revitalization instead of planting other churches.
• It will cost too much.
• We will lose our fellowship.
• We’re too small to plant churches.
• We will plant churches when we reach _____ members.
• We do not have the leaders.
• Our growth momentum will slow down.
• We already support missions in other ways.
• If the lost want to attend a church, then they are welcome to meet with us.
• If we plant another church in this community, we’ll be competing against each other.

Can you think of other concerns that your congregation will mention?  How will you respond to these concerns?  Make certain that your responses are thoroughly biblical and built upon healthy missiology.  Be gracious and humble in your responses.  Remember, the writer of Proverbs wrote:  “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.  The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly” (Proverbs 15:1-2, ESV).

Again, as noted in a previous post, the Lord has extended to you a great deal of thought and time to church planting.  You have probably been praying over this matter for months, maybe even years.  You have been eating, sleeping, and breathing church planting.   Remember, just as the Lord has been gracious to you in moving you toward deeper convictions toward such missionary activity, please extend such grace to your people.  If their involvement in missions has been limited to sending money overseas, then they will likely need some time to study the Scriptures and pray through the process.  Be a leader.  Take them by the hand. Pray for them.  Pray for yourself.  And guide them in being involved in seeing missionary teams regularly sent from the church.

Previous Posts in the Series:

Part 5: 5 Steps for Casting a Vision for Multiplication

Part 4: Avoiding the Nestea Plunge

Part 3: Some Resources to Get You Started

Part 2: 7 Reasons for Leading Your Church in Church Planting

Part 1: The Other Wing of the Airplane

By now, I assume that you have a good theological and missiological foundation for church planting.  If not, let me encourage you to check out my book Discovering Church Planting as well as many of my posts on this blog (just search for “church planting”).

If you are just joining in on this series, you can read the previous posts here:

Part 4: Avoiding the Nestea Plunge

Part 3: Some Resources to Get You Started

Part 2: 7 Reasons for Leading Your Church in Church Planting

Part 1: The Other Wing of the Airplane

The writer of Proverbs notes, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Prov 20:5, ESV).  While the vision for leading your church in church planting may be within you, it also needs to be within your people.  Casting, or drawing out that vision, so that your people will own it, requires great understanding.

Casting the vision for church multiplication is the ability to paint both prayerfully and patiently a picture of: 1) what the Spirit has shown to be a multiplicative growth possibility with churches both historically and in contemporary societies; and 2) what the Spirit can do working through your church to plant multiplying churches.  This picture must be painted with enough detail that your church will be attracted to the vision and motivated to minister to carry out that vision.  Also, the picture must be broad enough to allow for the flexibility and creativity of the Spirit to work as He desires through the gifts, talents, personalities, and abilities of His people.

Vision casting for multiplication is about revealing the possibilities.  It enables church members to “see” where they can fit into such a work.  It causes people to say, “Yes, by God’s grace, I can see our church (and myself) involved in church planting.”

Steps Involved in the Process

The following five steps are to assist you in your context when it comes to casting a vision for church multiplication.

Pray

Assuming you have a vision to cast, pray for God’s leadership in the process.  Pray that He would be glorified in the process.  Pray that there would be no ungodly conflict related to the vision.  Pray for spiritual protection for both you and your church.  Pray for wisdom in communicating and leading in this area of ministry.

You must also pray that you will have patience with your people.  Just as the Lord was gracious to provide you with much time to think about and discuss church planting with others, you must also extend such grace to your church as they hear about this matter for the first time.  If it took you months or even years to get on the church planting bus, then it is unfair for you to expect your people to hop on in a matter of minutes.

Understand What “Communicates” with Your People

If you have a vision for something as important as church multiplication, then it must be communicated effectively to your church.  You must know your people and how they receive and process information.  Clear communication is extremely important here.  A failure to contextualize your vision will hinder the vision from becoming a reality.

Know the Possibilities

You must educate yourself and your church about the possibilities of church multiplication.  Teach them what the Spirit has done with churches in the past, as well as the present.  Always, begin with the Scriptures.  Ask the question: “What was required of the believers to be used by the Spirit in the disciple-making movement that resulted in the planting of churches across the world?”  Even if you do not agree with all of their theologies, take a brief look at the church planting labors of the early Moravians, Methodists, Baptists, and Pentecostals.  And even look outside of your country for examples of the Spirit’s work as well.

Recognize and Overcome the Barriers

A good portion of your time is likely to be spent in understanding and overcoming the barriers that prevent your church from being involved in church multiplication.  What theological, missiological, cultural, structural, and/or denominational barriers exist that must be overcome?  Again, I will direct you to my article on vision casting where I address some of these.

Communicate the Vision Redundantly

Rick Warren recommends restating the vision every twenty-six days (The Purpose-Driven Church, 111).  Begin with your leaders.  Keep the vision before them.  Work to keep the vision before the people.  Make the vision part of your sermons, lessons, classes, announcements, blog posts, tweets, newsletters, etc.  Keep reminding the people of the biblical and theological foundation for why your church needs to be involved in church planting.  Keep reminding them of the missiological reasons as well (see post two of this series.)

The process of vision casting is more art than science.  So, what are you waiting for?  Get out your pencils, paint brushes, and pens and draw out that purpose found in your heart.

Part 3: Some Resources to Get You Started

Part 2: 7 Reasons for Leading Your Church in Church Planting

Part 1: The Other Wing of the Airplane

As I mentioned in the first part of this series, my challenge to pastors is:  “Lead your church to be involved in church planting by sending out missionary teams to do evangelism that results in new churches.”

While such is still my challenge, I recognize that for most churches and pastors this notion of church planting is a strange concept.  Part of this unfamiliarity is derived from our present North American atmosphere that is not saturated with a healthy missiology.  For instance, most of the examples of “healthy” and “effective” church planting today (I’ll save my comments on how we are defining “healthy” and “effective” for a future post.) use methodologies that are extremely expensive and not reproducible by the common believer called by God to serve as a missionary in North America.  As a result of being exposed to such methodological mania, most pastors begin to think, “If that is church planting, then there is no way we can do that.”

And they are usually right.

So, in light of the thought that exists in the minds of many churches today–that church planting is just too complicated and too expensive–I want to encourage you to begin by leading your church into some small level of commitment in church planting.  As churches begin to understand the biblical expression and healthy missiological principles, they will hopefully develop a much better picture of this great ministry and engage at a deeper level.

Do you remember the late 70′s early 80′s commercials that revealed the “Nestea Plunge”?  Some of you do. And for those of you who were only in the heart of God at that time, HERE is a clip for you.

When it comes to leading your church in church planting, I greatly fear that some leaders and churches feel that in order to be involved they must take the “Nestea Plunge,” falling without restraint, wisdom, or direction into this ministry.  That involvement is an all-or-nothing type of ministry.   Such thoughts are overwhelming–and should be.

While I believe that any level of involvement in church planting is better than no involvement, a church does not have to jump into the deep end of the pool (to use another aqueous analogy).  Most pastors are wise to lead their churches into unfamiliar territory at a steady pace.  So, feel free to enter in at the shallow side of the pool.

While the following is not an exhaustive list of commitment levels, it does help you to think about the possibilities of involvement for you and your church (in the beginning, of course).

• Prayer Support. Consider devoting a portion of the Sunday morning worship time (every week) to pray for specific church planting teams.  A Wednesday night prayer meeting could also be focused on praying for known teams in North America.  Lead your church to prayer walk a community in which a team is working.  Lead your church to have prayer meetings in the homes of church planters and pray for their ministries.  Allow church planting teams to recruit prayer warriors from your congregation to pray for their work.
• Encouragement and a Body of Identity. As much as possible, missionaries need to be a part of the on-going fellowship of established churches.  Lead your church to offer encouragement and fellowship to church planting teams.  They need a body that will embrace them and love them, for it is likely that church planters in your community are miles away from their home churches and family members.  Consider giving church planting families gift cards to restaurants or supermarkets.  Lead your church to be that local church with whom missionaries can identify as their family.
• Pastoral Mentoring and Accountability. “Who pastors the missionaries?”  We usually do not think about this question.  Consider providing your pastoral services to such church planting teams in your area.  They need people with whom they can share concerns.  Help mentor and provide accountability for them.
• Provide Training. While you may not be able to provide church planters training in church planting skills (maybe you can?), your church can assist in providing training in other areas.  Or, consider providing the costs for the missionary teams to attend a church planting training event.
• Give Them the Platform. Invite local missionaries to give a testimony about their church planting work in your area.  Give them five minutes on a Sunday morning to share about church planting.  Allow a church planter to preach for you, when you are present (and not on vacation ).  This shows your support to the ministry of church planting.
• Provide Resources and Financial Support.  Okay, I finally said it.  Yes, consider giving money to assist them in Great Commission work.  The lack of money (personal finances) is the most common concern on the minds of most church planters serving in the United States and Canada today.  Or, consider leading your church to assist in other areas.  You may be able to allow a church planting team to use your photocopier, office space, administrative assistants, van, or building.  Your church may be able to provide Bibles, food and other supplies for outreach events, or people to assist in ministry activities.

These are just a few ideas to get you started in moving your church from the shallow end of the church planting pool to the deep end, eventually sending out your own missionary teams to plant churches in your community, region, and throughout the world.