I enjoy being around church planters. This morning at Mountainview our guest speaker was Todd Sinclair, a church planter who started Life Church in Aurora, CO. Todd challenged us to think of our journey with Jesus as participating in God’s story. He also challenged us to think relationally.
After starting a new church in San Diego (LifePoint!), I can honestly say that starting new churches is the single most effective way to reach people disconnected from God. Those four and a half years with LifePoint were wonderfully challenging but wonderful nonetheless. We saw people discover God for the first time sitting while sitting on one of our couches. That’s a thrill that’s hard to describe but it’s addicting.
If you are a pastor of a medium to large church, I want to encourage you to begin praying about how God might use your church to start new churches. It may be planting one of your own or partnering with another local church to provide the money and team. If we can begin to think in terms of net Kingdom gain rather than individual church attendance, we will see the Kingdom expand like never before. Which would you rather have: one church of 500 or two churches of 400 and 200 respectively?
If you a person who is considering planting a church, pray hard that God will light a fire in you for church planting that nothing else can extinguish. Meet with church planters in your areas. Go to their worship services. Read church planting blogs (see below for a sample).
Simply put, go for it!
Church planting blogs: