Do you feel like you're being called to plant a new church? Well, not so fast. In this video, Daniel Im walks through some of the different questions and indicators you should ask yourself before setting out to plant a church.
Daniel Im the Director of Church Multiplication for NewChurches.com at LifeWay Christian Resources.
Find more from Daniel: www.danielim.com/
Learn more about the church planting: NewChurches.com
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The entire video is above, and the partial transcript is below.
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The question, "Am I called to be a church planter?" is not a straightforward one. It's not like, "Should I breathe?" or "Should I love others as Jesus does?" The question, "Am I called to be a church planter?" is kind of like asking, "Should I go into an arts program, science, or trade?" What's implied behind this question is the importance of further education. So, the question is more a matter of which route will you take.
When we look at the biblical commandment “to go therefore and make disciples of all nations”, the natural outflow of that is the planting of new churches.
We see this through the early Church and how the apostles preached the gospel, made disciples, and planted churches. And then, preached the gospel, made disciples, and planted churches. I mean, just look through the book of Acts and then look at how the New Testament was written to new churches in their respective life situations. Essentially, the New Testament can be seen as an anthology of church plants.
So the fact is, just like we all need to eat food or we'll die, we need to all be about church planting or the Church will die.
And the better question that we need to ask is, "Am I called to be about church planting?" And let me make this easy for you. If you're a follower of Christ, the answer is a default “yes”.
Now there are people who will object to church planting and will say things like, "Isn't one larger church better than a lot of smaller churches?" Well, the fact is it's not really an either/or. Both are good and necessary, but according to our recent state of church-planting research at NewChurches.com, we discover that new church plants are extremely effective at winning people to Christ. So while there isn't anything wrong with larger churches, there's definitely something wrong if we don't plant new ones.
Or maybe people give this objection: "We have enough churches." Well, based on the census data from 2011, there are approximately 11 churches for every 10,000 Americans. Now, unless there are mega-churches in every neighborhood in this country - which there aren't - there simply aren't enough churches around. Add that to the fact that our population continues to increase and the numbers speak for themselves.
We all need to be about church planting.
In the second edition of Planting Missional Churches, Ed Stetzer and I walk through a few of the characteristics of Paul, the church planter, throughout the New Testament. Here are a few of his characteristics:
1. He was an evangelist.
2. He was entrepreneurial.
3. He empowered other leaders.
4. He cared for people.
5. He stayed committed to his calling despite the sacrifice.
So how many of those five characteristics do you identify with?
It's not enough to just be excited about the idea of planting a church, being the boss, and not having to do ministry the way others do. Planting a church is much more nuanced than that. So if those are the types of reasons that are pushing you to plant, you will fail. The enemy will have his way, and the cumulative aftermath with be devastating.
So who is the ideal church planter? What does a church-planter look like? There certainly isn't one type of church planter since there isn't just one type of church. So depending on the model you choose and the context that you plant in, the type of planter will be different.
So regardless of model and context, the fact is every planter and pastor needs to first put themselves up against the biblical qualifications of pastoral ministry as outlined in passages like 1 Timothy 3. So when we think about church planters specifically, planters need to be above reproach. They need to be able to teach. Self-controlled. Not lovers of money and so on. So be sure to read through this passage and others like to put yourself up against it.
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Find the full transcript at LifeWayVoices.com