To Plant .... or not ...

that is the question . . . .

As I struggle with this this class and the assignments, I am discovering more and more that I am not a church planter. When I first came to Emmanuel, I was a very 'green', gung-ho freshman with dreams of getting a Bachelor of Theology in Missions and taking on the world to bring people to Christ. I thought I was ready for whatever the world and God might throw my way. Move to a foreign country? No problem. Learn a new language? Bring it on. Evangelize a people group who had no idea who God was and help them start a church? Once I finished Bible College that would be a piece of cake. A graduate which a Bachelor in Missions could do anything and everything! I could not have been more naive.

The more I learned about the realities of present-day mission positions (as opposed to the glorified ideals I had in my head), the more the harsh realities of missions began to sink in. You typically don't just pick up a language in 6 months or move to a country right after graduation. Evangelism and church planting take years of preparation, relationship building, research, and gathering resources. None of this happens overnight and not everyone that God calls into the mission field is meant to be involved in every aspect of it. In fact, I have learned that God is not currently calling me to do any of these things. I planned on being a career missionary in a foreign country. But I have been feeling God actually calling me to work in the missions context in a completely different way through counselling. My skills and giftings are being directed towards the care of those I thought I would be joining; care of missionaries.

So, what does that seeming random tangent have to do with the Church Planting course? I thought that I was going to go overseas as a 'super-Christian' with all these amazing abilities to reach those who have yet to hear about God and then help them plant a church that would help nurture these new believers and reach out into the communities. But with each class session we have, I am realizing more and more that this is not an area that God has gifted me in. He has given me the ability to come alongside and encourage those he does call to plant churches but I do not have the vision nor the drive to determine the needs within a community and know how to establish a body of believers that can meet those needs. It has been and continues to be a very humbling experience for me. I have found myself wondering why I am even taking the class (besides the facts that it is required for my program) and I have come to these conclusions:
-God is teaching me that I am not 'super-Christian'
-If I am to care for missionaries, I need to have an understanding of what they are doing in their field so that I can know how to come alongside them
-The practical elements of planning, goal setting and research are applicable for almost all ministry situations
-There is always a chance that God may call me to be involved in a church plant some time in the future (since we never know what God's complete plan is) and this course can prepare me with the practical knowledge of how to go about that

Will I end up using what I have gleaned from this course to plant a church in the future? Only God knows that. Will the strategies and ideas taught within the course come with me in my endeavours to serve Christ and God's kingdom? Most definitely!

Reflections on planting...

** Warning, this is a bit of a soap-box rant **








Church planting ... I believe that it is a great method for getting the gospel out to the unreached while providing a place to foster new disciples and encourage believers. Church plants can be a way of bringing a visible church body into a community that has been otherwise devoid of it. And as we have learned from the textbook, they can be a way of meeting the needs in a community where other organizations fall short.

However, what I am struggling with, especially with our assignments, is discerning whether a community actually needs a church plant or whether the person wanting to plant the church should really consider pouring into the existing established organizations and churches. The textbook told us that we need to be careful not to overlook these organizations but rather see what their involvement is the community is and what they have to offer. I think that, especially in an urban setting such as we are in, our first priority should be to connect with these groups. If we find that they are lacking in reaching certain areas of the community, then we should seek to help them amend that. Whether it is done solely within that organization or as a joint effort with surrounding churches/organizations. Our faith community has been vastly blessed by God with various resources and connections and I think that they can work together to meet the needs of our neighbours both physically, emotionally and spiritually. We need to recognize this and make use of these resources. Paul likens Christians to the human body and as such we need to make more of an effort to work as the body; together in unison towards one goal: God's kingdom on earth!

So while I strongly believe in church planting, I think we need to be careful to consider the context in which we plan to start the plant and consider the resources already existing there.

Guiding Ideas

To be honest, I really struggle with the idea of what I want my church plant to be for. I have lived in this community for going about five and a half years and I honestly have trouble finding a need for another church in the community. Most of the churches I know are doing well to serve the community.

One area I thought of that might need the church to address is the significant number of seniors in the area. None of the churches particularly specialize in seniors ministry. So I propose to plant a church that while being open to all age groups, makes sure to take care of the seniors in our community and let them know they are a valued member of the body of Christ.

(more specifics to follow)

Network, network, network, network ...

(Secular Resource Review)

When I was thinking about what type of article I wanted to look for to read for this assignment, the reoccurring subject that continually came to mind was that the business world. There is a lot of correlation between starting or relocating a business and church planting: cause or necessity, research, planning, etc…. After sifting through several periodical articles, I came across this particular one: Building a healthy business network is a necessary and thoroughly trainable skill for the new millennium[1] written by William C. Byham. At the mention of the “new millennium,” my initial instinct was to pass it over because it was likely 10-20 years old (a later glace at the date proved I was wrong in that assumption) but upon reading the article I found it to be very appropriate to this assignment and to life in general.

One sentence in the first paragraph of this article sums up the basis for why the author wrote this article: “the need to have a group of people who can help in different circumstances is larger than ever.”[2] In a world where information is vast and multiplying daily, the need for networking grows exponentially since we do not all have equal access to that information. We can, however, connect with people who do have that access. He goes on to outline the four key skills needed for networking:

1) “Figure out who should be in your network

2) Dare to introduce yourself

3) Ask for help

4) Networking must be reciprocal … it needs to be a two way street,”[3] make an effort to keep in touch with your contacts.

Networking has been part of business practices for centuries. Now however, “networking is no longer a nice to have [skill]; it’s a must [skill].”[4] That is why Byham puts forth the necessity of training people how to network and encouraging it within the workplace.

So, what does this have to do with Christian missiologically? Networking by its definition is “a group or system of interconnected people or things.”[5] That sounds like the church to me and a major part of missions. The first church way back in Acts survived, thrived and spread in part through networking. Each member of the church willingly shared their faith through evangelisation of their families and friends. The church survived in part through the early church members pooling their resources in order meet everyone’s needs (Acts 2:42-47). This is true even of today. Without networks to connect the Christian church, each congregation is left to fend for itself and there is risk of conflict when church groups overlap within the same community. Congregations could very likely end up fight each other territory and parishioners rather than working together.

This concept ties directly into church planting. One key aspect of a church plant is its network. Before going into a community, the church planting team must establish what already exists in that community, whether or not there is a need for a church plant, whether it is feasible to plant the church with the existing resources, etc… The way that they find this out, without reinventing the wheel of church planting, is through their existing networks. This way they can connect with existing churches, businesses and community members about the potential of planting a church in that location. Once a plan is established to plant a church, the core group must then not only maintain their existing networks but develop and maintain a new network for their church plant. To do this, they should use Byham’s four skills: choose who would beneficial to the church network, get yourself out there, do not be afraid to ask for help, and then maintain those relationships.

Just as networking is vital to business growth, so it is to church planting. Networking allows a church plant to access a wealth of knowledge gained from ‘planters-past’ on the positive and negative aspects of their experiences. Church planters can then learn from them and use that knowledge to better ground their church plant and avoid some of the mistakes of the past.

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[1] William C. Byham, “Building a healthy business network is a necessary and thoroughly trainable skill for the new millennium,” T+D Magazine, pages 64-68, May, 2010 (accessed at http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=106&sid=e0f3fb91-17ae-40aa-ab0a-499205d1dc56%40sessionmgr111)

[2] Byham, 65

[3] Byham, 67

[4] Byham, 68

[5] “Network” , Oxford Dictionaries, 2010 (accessed at http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0554570#m_en_gb0554570)