Global Church Planting

Biblical Principles and Best Practices for Multiplication

Ott, Craig, Wilson, Gene

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781441213679
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christlicher Dienst

With nearly fifty years combined global church-planting experience, Craig Ott and Gene Wilson are well qualified to write a comprehensive, up-to-date guide for cross-cultural church planting. Combining substantive biblical principles and missiological understanding with practical insights, this book walks readers through the various models and development phases of church planting. Advocating methods that lead to church multiplication, the authors emphasize the role of the missionary church planter. They offer helpful reflection on current trends and provide best practices gathered from research and empirical findings around the globe. The book takes up a number of special issues not addressed in most church planting books, such as use of short-term teams, partnerships, and wise use of resources. Full of case studies and real examples from around the world, this practical text will benefit students, church planters, missionaries, and missional church readers.

1

The Task of Church Planting

Many church planters are enthusiastic about their calling and the challenge of launching into such an exciting endeavor. Because church planters often have pioneering and entrepreneurial personalities, they sometimes have little patience for defining goals or answering fundamental questions about the nature of the task. But not doing so is like setting out to build a house without blueprints. Even allowing for unexpected developments and creative freedom, it’s essential to have a good idea of the nature and goal of the task if it is to be fulfilled.

Years ago a cartoon frequently shown on German television depicted a character shooting an arrow rather randomly at a wall, then walking to the wall and drawing the bull’s-eye around the point where the arrow struck. Such a method ensures that you’re always on target! Oddly enough, some church planters do seem to shoot first and draw the target later. Given the growing number of church planters who have had little formal biblical or theological training, the need is all the greater to begin by defining terms and becoming clear about the nature of the church and what it thus means to plant a church. This is particularly important when one is planting a church in another culture. Of course entire books have been written on the nature of the church. This chapter maps in summary fashion a theological blueprint for the practical work of church planting.

What Is a Church?

Defining the church is the first obvious step in understanding church planting. Our natural tendency is to envision planting congregations that look and act something like our home church, even though the church may be planted in another culture or under very different circumstances. One tacitly assumes that this is the best or only biblical form of the church.

However, a careful look at the New Testament reveals that the first-century churches took a number of forms, meeting in various places and with differing emphases and structures. The church in Jerusalem, for example, which included members who were “zealous for the law,” continued to observe many Jewish practices such as participation in certain temple rites (Acts 2:46; 5:42; 21:20, 26). The predominantly Gentile churches had no such practices and met primarily in homes. Yet all were legitimate New Testament churches suited to their contexts.

Many elements of church life with which we are familiar at home may be neither biblically necessary nor culturally appropriate in a different setting. Does a congregation have to have a paid pastor, own a building, celebrate weekly Sunday morning services, or have legal status including a formal constitution and bylaws to be a “real” church? These may be desirable, but by New Testament standards they are hardly essential. Many of the churches planted by Paul would not meet what many today might consider a minimal standard for being an established church. Nevertheless, he addressed even the most problematical congregations as “the church.” This forces us to consider more carefully what genuinely constitutes a local church in the biblical sense.

Every leader in a church-planting team should judiciously study the Scriptures and seek to answer these and many other questions about the life and nature of the church. One must distinguish between that which is biblically mandated and essential and that which is nonessential. The Scriptures allow great freedom in the details of church life and polity. Cross-cultural church planters must take extra care not to impose foreign expressions of church life, but to creatively develop the new church in ways that fulfill biblical purposes in a culturally appropriate manner. At the same time the church should demonstrate the countercultural values of the kingdom of God.

Church planters must clarify their ecclesiology in their own minds prior to launching a plant. A biblical study on the nature of the church should be included in the early teaching of any church plant,[1] allowing local believers to help determine what forms the church should take to fulfill biblical purposes in the local context. While there is no substitute for turning directly to the Scriptures for our understanding of the church, there is also much value in becoming familiar with historical teachings on the church and learning how the church has taken shape in other contexts (see chapter 6 on the shape of the church and contextualization).[2]

We must begin by understanding the essential nature of the church. A summary of various understandings of the essence of the church is found in table 1.1. First and foremost, the church is a spiritual entity, conceived by the Father (Eph. 1:3–6), built by Christ (Matt. 16:18), and indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:19–22). The church is God’s primary vehicle for manifesting the nature of the kingdom of God in this age and among all people. This biblical vision of the church should capture our imagination and stir our hearts. What a glorious and holy privilege to be God’s servants in the planting and establishing of local churches!

The early church fathers often spoke of the church as the fellowship of the saints. Emphasis was rightly placed on the church as a people rather than as an institution. Essential attributes of the church were summarized in the Nicene Creed (AD 381) as one (unity), holy (sanctified life), catholic (universal, for all people), and apostolic (based upon teaching of the apostles). These attributes have been variously interpreted through the history of the church,[3] but they are confessed by nearly all Christians. The Reformers focused more on essential marks of the church, in an attempt to discern what constitutes the true church in contrast to false expressions of the church. Luther spoke of the right preaching of the Word (doctrine) and faithful administration of the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) as the two essential marks. Reformed churches added the exercise of church discipline. Free churches emphasized the personal regeneration and piety of their members.[4]

Table 1.1

The Essence of the Church

	Nature	Marks
	One	Right doctrine
	Holy	Faithful administration of the sacraments
	Catholic (universal)	Church discipline
	Apostolic	Personal faith
	Purpose	Metaphors
	Witness, martyria	People of God
	Fellowship, koinonia	Body of Christ
	Service, diakonia	Flock of God
	Proclamation, kerygma	Bride of Christ
	Worship, leiturgia	Temple of God Royal priesthood

A more practical approach is to define the church in terms of its purpose and work. Acts 2:42 describes the basic activities of the church in terms of apostolic teaching, fellowship, breaking bread (and baptism), and prayer, to which are added worship and evangelism (v. 47) and then later the intentional sending of missionaries (Acts 13). Theologians have also spoken of the church’s witness (martyria), fellowship (koinonia), service (diakonia), proclamation (kerygma), and worship (leiturgia).[5] Rick Warren’s popular book The Purpose-Driven Church lists outreach (to evangelize), worship (to exalt), fellowship (to encourage), discipleship (to edify), and service (to equip) as biblical purposes that should be kept in balance and give the church direction. Yet another way to view the church is in terms of its relationship to Christ. Highly relational cultures, especially in Majority World settings, may find such an understanding more helpful than other approaches:

• confession of Christ as Lord (baptism)
• witnesses to Christ (evangelism)
• remembrance and fellowship of Christ (Lord’s Supper)
• Spirit of Christ (filling, fruit, gifts)
• love of Christ (worship, devotion)
• Word of Christ (preaching, teaching)
• family of Christ (fellowship, community)
• sacrifice of Christ (stewardship, service)
• suffering of Christ (faithfulness, perseverance)

Note how the key biblical metaphors of the church also place the church in relationship to Christ—for example:

• Christ as head of the body
• Christ as the good shepherd of his flock
• Christ as foundation, cornerstone, and builder of his church
• Christ as the door to the sheepfold

Based on this discussion we offer the following practical definition of a local church as we will be using the term in this book. A local church is a fellowship of believers in Jesus Christ committed to gathering regularly for biblical purposes under a recognized spiritual leadership. This very basic definition includes several key elements:

• Believers. The church is composed of persons who have experienced salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ according to the gospel and confessed in baptism. They desire to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, regenerated and enabled by the Holy Spirit. They are the new people of God.
• Gathering. These believers are committed to meeting together regularly to serve God and one another.[6] They are the family of God. As a missionary people, they gather in preparation to be sent as agents of God’s mission in the world.
• Purpose. Their fellowship gathers to fulfill biblical purposes that include prayer, worship, evangelism, instruction, edification, service, celebration of the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, exercise of church discipline, and the sending of missionaries. They embody values of the kingdom of God.
• Leadership. They submit to recognized spiritual leaders. Leaders provide a minimal form of structure under Christ’s headship. In a spirit of servanthood they give direction, spiritual oversight, and care, teaching and equipping the body of believers.

This might be considered a minimal list of practical characteristics defining a church for the church planter. Isolated believers, special interest meetings, or unstructured gatherings alone do not constitute a church.

This definition leaves much room for flexibility. A paid pastor is not essential, but recognized leaders are. Church buildings are not necessary, but regular meetings are. Adherence to a particular creed or denominational distinctive is not required, but faithfulness to biblical truth and purposes is. Deep spiritual maturity is a goal, but more essential is the believers’ fundamental commitment to obedience in following Christ.

What Do We Mean by “Church Planting”?

Having defined what we mean by church, we can simply define church planting as that ministry which seeks to establish new churches. Normally this will be through evangelism, discipleship, and gathering of these persons into a functioning congregation. Most church planting will also have the longer-term goal of multiplication. We thus offer this definition: Church planting is that ministry which through evangelism and discipleship establishes reproducing kingdom communities of believers in Jesus Christ who are committed to fulfilling biblical purposes under local spiritual leaders.

Planting is a term used by the apostle Paul to describe his ministry of establishing new churches in 1 Corinthians 3:6: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.” Though Paul had a variety of gifts and ministries, here “planting” refers to his pioneering apostolic ministry of establishing new churches in locations and among people where there was no preexisting church. He makes this clear in Romans 15:20: “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.”

Complementary to planting or pioneering ministries are “watering” ministries such as that of Apollos noted in 1 Corinthians 3:6. Paul had sent him to Corinth to further instruct the church there (1 Cor. 16:12). Whereas the ministry of planting involves primarily evangelism, discipleship, and congregating, the ministry of watering involves further teaching and strengthening churches that have already been gathered. Both planters and waterers are essential to the long-term goal of establishing healthy, reproducing churches. When we speak of “church planting” in this book we are broadly referring to the entire process of planting (in the sense of pioneering) and early watering leading to the establishing of healthy new churches.

Church Planting as a Spiritual Undertaking

Most of this book will discuss the process and practical methods of church planting. But we must keep foremost in our minds that church planting is essentially a spiritual undertaking, done primarily by spiritual means. Jesus is the real church planter, as he promised, “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18). The Great Commission as recorded in Matthew 28:19–20, to go and make disciples of all nations, is sandwiched between the affirmation that all authority in heaven and on earth is given to Jesus (v. 18) and the promise of Jesus’s presence with the disciples until the end of the age (v. 20). Only through “remaining in Christ” can our ministry bear fruit; indeed, apart from Jesus we can do nothing (John 15:5). John’s Gospel furthermore recalls Jesus’s promise that the Holy Spirit would convince unbelievers of sin, righteousness, and judgment and thus of their need for salvation in Christ (John 16:8).

Luke’s Gospel ends with Jesus’s command to wait in carrying out the Great Commission until they have been “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). Nothing could be clearer from Luke’s second volume, the book of Acts, than the centrality of the enabling and empowering work of the Holy Spirit in the spread of the gospel and establishment of churches. For example:

• power for witness and preaching (Acts 1:8; 4:8)
• granting boldness in the midst of persecution (Acts 4:31)
• strengthening and comforting the churches (Acts 9:31)
• guidance in decision making (Acts 16:6–10)
• calling and sending missionaries (Acts 13:2–4)
• confirming the apostolic preaching through signs and wonders (Acts 2:43; 4:16; 5:12; 6:8; 8:6, 13; 14:3; 15:12; 19:11)

It was the Lord who added new believers to the church (Acts 2:47) and the Lord who opened the hearts of those who heard the gospel (Acts 2:37; 16:14). Luke also writes of the growth of the church in terms of the Word of God increasing, spreading, and multiplying (Acts 6:7; 12:24; 13:49; 19:20). Human agents play a subordinate role.

The same emphasis can be found in letters of the apostle Paul. God’s powe...