Church Planting, an Enigma: part II

Enigma Machine by Tim Gage

About the Author -

Tony Thompson leads Hope Church in Luton, which he planted. He has been involved in church plant leadership for many years, in leading church plants and coaching and training church planters.

This Article

Wednesday, 4 March, 2009 - 15:42

In the first part of this article, Tony demystifies the enigma of church planting.  He identifies the different types of church plants, and highlights the factors required to start a church plant.  Here Tony concludes by unpacking some of these factors in more detail.

Leadership
The bottleneck in many parts of the world is leadership. If we had more leaders we could plant more churches. A key role of apostolic and prophetic ministry is to identify church planters. This appears to be a God-given ability. Put an apostle in a group of leaders and he seems to be able to pick out those gifted and called as pioneering church planters in no time! Many church planters have been identified and released by apostolic ministry in this way.

Prophetic ministry also has a role in releasing church planters. I vividly remember sitting in a room minding my own business when Colin Baron prophesied over me that I needed to move from where I was and get involved in a pioneering church plant. Over a short period of time others prophesied similar things, confirming my call to move to Luton to plant the church there. Many have been released into church planting through the prophetic. I do not believe a prophetic word is essential before you can plant, but having one does help!

Once church planters are identified, they must be suitably trained and developed. Across the Newfrontiers world there are different types of training available. We find that those with previous eldership experience in a local church are more effective church planters than those without it. Whilst not essential, eldership experience is excellent preparation. If we want to increase the rate of church planting we need to identify and develop more leaders.

Location
A key decision is where to plant the church. Sometimes God clearly speaks about a specific location, an example being: ‘Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us"' (Acts 16:9). Not surprisingly, Paul went to Philippi, a leading city in Macedonia, and planted a church. Paul was also encouraged to stay in Corinth because the Lord told him that He had many people in that city.

However, it's not always so clear. The Holy Spirit told the church in Antioch to ‘set apart for me Barnabas and Saul to the work which I have called them.' It was clear to them that this work was to plant churches but no specific instructions were given as to where to go. They themselves chose to go to Cyprus. The reason would appear to be that Barnabas, the leader of the team, was originally from Cyprus (Acts 4:36). It is always easier to establish a new church where there are already existing relationships.

The policy of Paul and Barnabas, as outlined in Acts, was to use ‘common sense' to identify the next place to plant, fully offering this to God then expecting Him to redirect if necessary. This seems to be a healthy model for us to follow when considering where to plant.
Apostolic and prophetic ministry can both, therefore, be involved in identifying strategic locations. I believe they also have a key role in helping match leadership with location.

Vision and strategy
Having a leader and a location doesn't mean we are ready to plant a church. There is the need for vision (what sort of church is to be planted) and strategy (how it is to be planted).

Too often there is not enough clarity regarding the style or ‘flavour' of the church that is to be planted. Some churches are planted with a view to reaching a particular neighbourhood, others to reach a whole city, yet others to a whole area. This is obviously true for urban settings but can be equally valid in more rural contexts, where churches are planted to reach a village or an area of villages.

In many geographical contexts there may be several different people groups. In Luton we have people from many different nations as well as a university. We had to be clear about our vision: were we wanting to reach people of all backgrounds to demonstrate our being one new man in Christ, or were we seeking initially to reach one particular group?

I believe that apostolic ministry has a role in helping churches in identifying appropriate vision and strategy for their context.

Conclusion
There is something special about church planting! It continues to be God's chosen method of establishing His kingdom on earth. There is much to learn from both Scripture and experience but nothing beats rolling up your sleeves and getting involved in making history by planting a church!

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