Quick Update and Why Plant a Church?
Why Plant a Church?
After transitioning from a steady career to the unknown journey of planting a church, it has generated conversations and questions. One of the questions that I received is, why plant a church? After all, there are churches on “every corner” and in nearly every town in the Bible Belt.
First, church planting is a biblical pattern that we see in the New Testament. Most people generally view the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 as a command to evangelize, but it also includes making “disciples,” “baptizing them,” and “teaching them to observe” God’s Word. In the book of Acts, when Jesus ascended to be at the right hand of the Father, the primary way the apostles carried out that Great Commission was through evangelizing and planting churches (or simply starting new churches). Paul, on his missionary journeys, planted churches. For example, Paul went to Philippi, which was a major city (Acts 16:12). While in Philippi, Paul shared the Gospel, people came to faith, and they were baptized (Acts 16:14-15, 33-34). When Paul left Philippi to embark on another journey, he was even sent off by this newly formed congregation (Acts 16:40). Later, when Paul wrote the letter of Philippians to that newly formed church, they were a fully formed church with elders/pastors and deacons (Phil. 1:1-2). The church in Philippi even partnered with Paul and financially supported him in his missionary and church planting efforts (Phil. 1:5; 4:15-18). Most of the New Testament was even written to newly planted churches (Stezer and Im, Planting Missional Churches, 339).
Secondly, the question: “why plant a church if there are churches everywhere,” assumes that churches have fully reached their respective city, are actively reaching their city, and that city has reached Gospel saturation. Unfortunately, the statistics point to the fact that there is more work to be done. There are “200 million non-churched people'' in America, and “no county” in America has had an increase in “churched population in the past ten years” (Early and Wheeler, Evangelism Is: How to share Jesus with Passion and Confidence, 339). The population has grown at a rate where existing churches cannot keep up, and most large denominations have seen a decline (Early and Wheeler, 340). In other words, while most communities already have multiple churches, we need more Gospel-centered, evangelistic, disciple-making church plants just to meet the needs of population growth and overall church decline.
The hurdle for the church is to start viewing church planting as a collective responsibility of everyone in the universal church instead of a responsibility for “them.” This is a subtle form of sacerdotalism. If you have never heard the term before, sacerdotalism is a fancy word for the belief that there is a special class of church members (Priests, Pastors, etc.) who do “church stuff” like plant churches. This is not the New Testament pattern for the church. Church and planting churches is an “all hands on deck” enterprise. The church is not on a pleasure cruise but is actively involved in saving the lost. This is why Paul addresses the majority of his letters to “all of the saints'' and not just the “overseers and deacons'' (Phil. 1:1, cf. Rom. 1:7, 1 Cor. 1:2, Gal. 1:2). Paul was also encouraged and supported by that congregation in Philippi (Phil. 4:15-18; cf. 2 Cor. 11:9). There are several ways to support church planters or get involved: committing to pray, financially supporting planters (and church plants), becoming an interim launch team member, or joining a launch team. My prayer is that, in some capacity, we all roll up our sleeves and get to work (the Lord’s work).
Soli Deo Gloria,
Travis Boles
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