“Biblical Reproduction: Why Churches Should Plant Churches”
In every area (other than trout fishing) I am a novice. I am thirty-two, fifteen months into a church plant, and three years into pastoral ministry. Needless to say, I spend most days trying to figure out what in the world I have gotten myself into.
However my perspective does allow for an insider’s view on much of the current discussion within the SBC. I was raised in a Baptist church, served on the staff of four SBC churches, worked with the SBC since college, attended Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and recently planted a Southern Baptist Church. For these reasons, I feel a great sense of indebtedness to the SBC and will continue to lead our church to support such cooperative work.
However, I am concerned. Currently, church planting is happening more and more outside of Baptistic streams by guys that are theologically Baptistic. While much attention is given to pragmatic discussions to lure young men back, I see one philosophic shift that would stem the waning tide of energy and produce disciple-making churches. Specifically, established congregations must begin to see it as a primary task to reproduce autonomous local churches that produce disciples. By that I contend that churches should see to it that they develop disciples, assess a leader, target a location, send a team, fund the project, provide ongoing care, and wean the church to maturity. In so doing benefits would be numerous:
DNA
The world does not need more church plants, rather it needs more people making disciples, who in turn create churches as a byproduct. This DNA cannot be taught in an academic setting but rather taught through active discipleship in a healthy church. Disciple making churches should, and necessarily will, produce other disciple making churches as a natural byproduct.
Assessment
Churches know that the success or failure of a church plant depends largely on the leadership. With such knowledge, the sending church would see to it that leaders were thoroughly evaluated prior to planting. Should churches have systems in place, young men from a churches youth ministry could be shaped for future planting, allowing the church to have years of investment in the individual. Specifically it should be normative that those sanctioned to plant churches are actively making personal disciples long before they are given the reigns of church leadership.
Accountability
The tap-out rate of church planters is mind numbing. Whatever the reason, it seems that planters get on the field and have no one looking over their shoulder and providing some robust accountability. Having someone to watch life and doctrine on the front end, in the middle and on the back end would be the rich joy of the sending church.
Finances
Think of the freedom that could come should churches abandon the machine gun funding approach that sprays financial bullets into the forest and rather hone their investment into disciple-making by fully supporting singular church plants to self-sufficiency and then moving on to do it again. Imagine what could happen if the 2,100 SBC churches in South Carolina planted one church every ten years somewhere around the world and fully supported and funded that plant to self-sufficiency.
Partnership
It seems that the perennial struggle of convention work is how to get the established churches to play nicely with the new guys without tension, competition, and other related silliness. It seems that the best way to bridge these gaps is not creating more arbitrary meetings for discussion but rather creating a system where pastors and their protégés could join together in the Great Commission. The multiplication of disciple production resulting in healthy churches should be a mission all pastors can rally around.
Minimalism
The new era of church programmatic extravagance and church-in-a-box plans may hide the lack of actual disciple reproduction in many evangelical churches. Regardless of her size, the church must regain a Biblical measurement for success that assesses disciples produced and not programs created.
Seriously, do we really need a church program for older moms, younger moms, soccer moms, and other adjectival descriptions of mothers? We don’t need bigger buildings, more programs or better advertising, but rather more people making disciples in more locations. What if every two years churches sent 50 people and one elder to an intentional location for the purpose of establishing a church?
Geographical Ownership
Churches in a city know where the holes of the city are, where people are being neglected, where ethnicities are being missed, where different discipleship models are necessitated. Churches that think, live, and breath disciple multiplication would have the DNA inherent in their system to target and reach into the crevices of the city and state in a way that those outside of the city never will.
Ownership
If a singular local church had the responsibility of birthing another church, the level of passionate ownership by the sending church and its leaders would skyrocket. Gone are the days when a small monthly check cut by a committee in a back room is enough to garner the support of the congregation. Churches will take ownership for that which is theirs.
Convention Freedom
So what about the Convention? In my opinion this is one of the beautiful byproducts. Conventions then get to function like conventions should. They serve as a tool to come alongside the local church and help them do what they can, should, and already are doing. Conventions then stop shouldering the weight of church planting. It’s not their job anyway.
I am far from a church-planting expert, but I am one who has graciously been redeemed by the free grace of Jesus Christ. I am a pastor who loves the bride of Christ and am humbled by the stewardship given to me by Christ. And I am a Baptist (by nature and choice) who desires to see us work together to multiply disciples to the glory of God.