?????? about Church Planting-- or-- Heinz isn't the only one with 57 Varieties

I submit this post to you with both a caveat and a disclaimer. The warning being that this might offend some. The disclaimer being that I don't have all the answers. This is mostly a 'thinking aloud' via blogdom. I feel a little awkward questioning what others feel God has told them to do, but yet I've been in situations before and done things 'for God' that now I feel were probably more of a 'jumping on the bandwagon' than the leading of the Spirit. So I'm not trying to be judgmental. I just don't get it.



So, church planting. Hmmmm. No doubt the activity itself has biblical roots. The apostles planted churches in those days when the good news was being spread into communities and cities it had not reached yet. Then they just had to function as the church (easier said than done).



Today I'm confused by the whole idea of church planting in the United States (not to be confused with sending missionaries into largely unreached countries). When I look at our small town, we have more than a half dozen choices almost within walking distance of my house. If Iwant to travel up to 30 minutes, I probably have close to 100 choices or more. Now, not all of those are places I'd necessarily want to go but many of them do contain real believers serving the Lord with sincerity and gladness.



Here's the event that brought my problem with church plants to the front of my mind. I got an email from a person I've recently been reacquainted with. This person was considering being part of a church plant in (insert large metropolitan city here). The problem is that this person also lives 2/3 of the way across the country having moved there for another church plant, from a church here. Now I guess what I don't get is that this first move was WAY out west. I have a hard time believing that there aren't enough believers out there to reach those around them. Who knows, the believers out there might be sending believers out here to reach the massive Arab population in the Detroit area. Doesn't it seem kind of silly to be 'trading' mission fields? Shouldn't we reach those that God put right in front of us? I know of a particular church in our state that is looking to plant in New York City. Right now the Brooklyn Tabernacle is doing an absolutely marvelous work in the city. They've got groups in all five boroughs. The church is living and active in Manhattan alone, in several different expressions already. NYC is a completely different culture than suburbia or the rural U.S. Who better to reach the people in the city, than those who already love the city as well as live and work there?



I remember when we lived in upstate New York in our apartment. In our little rural community along one particular country road, there were three Baptist churches all within about 3/10 of a mile. It was downright silly. One of them was called Fellowship Baptist Church and we used to chuckle at the name because they obviously weren't up for fellowshipping with the baptists 100 yards in either direction. Since that time it appears that two of those churches are now gone, but yet there are several more plants. In the other town in which we lived, we saw at least two plants come in while there were already a pile of churches in the area.



So, are we just shuffling believers around from church to church or are we actually reaching the lost in a big way? Are we determined to know & proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified, or are we wrapped up in our particular way of 'doing church'? I don't know. I have been part of a church plant at one point. We weren't one of the families that moved into the new area, but started attending just after they started the plant. I know that there were several gatherings of believers meeting within a few miles of them at the time. So were we bringing the gospel into an area that needed it? Seems to me like we were taking believers away from an area they were already ministering in and just shifting them into another. You can't tell me that everyone in the area where they had come from had already come to know Jesus. I know for a fact that is not the case. Had these folks already evangelized everyone that God placed in their lives, i.e., their kid's teachers, their work acquaintances, their neighbors, postmen, grocery clerks, etc.? I am all for sending out missionaries to places that haven't heard the good news, but in the good old U.S. of A., it seems like we are more interested in planting our type of church than bringing the gospel to people who have never heard it.

I guess what I'm asking is, "Does there really need to be a baptist plant (or two), a PCA plant, a Plymouth Brethren plant, a Christian & Missionary Alliance plant, a Church of the Nazarene plant, a pentecostal plant, an Independant Baptist plant, etc.........? (what is WITH all those labels anyway?) Are we footing the bill to open yet another plant in an area saturated with churches because we have a difference in the way we worship? Or are we renting or erecting yet another building because the the other churches in the area believes in only the King James Version and we like the ESV? I think the problem is that, although we don't like to admit it, we oftentimes are gathering around a set of distinctives rather than around the Lord. Another reason we plant seems to be an underlying feeling that our group has better methods of reaching the lost or discipling or whatever. Book upon book has been written about methodology from seeker sensitivity to bus ministry to cell groups and everything in between. The Bible only talks about the power of the gospel itself. There is no power in a particular method. In fact, I think when we start trusting in our methods we feel less of a need for reliance on the Head of the Church (um, that would be Jesus....not the pastor--but that's an entirely different post, I suppose)

Please understand that I'm not trying to be negative, controversial, or cynical. I'd love to hear your views. Just yesterday I heard of a church one town away from us, starting a church in another neighboring town (which already has a pile of churches). Go figure.

I Corinthians 3: Are you not acting like mere men? 4For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?
5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.

We Cannot Choose Our Brothers

II Corinthians 5:16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

The following words are not my own. They are from a book I read 20-some years ago by the name of Living With Jesus Today, by Juan Carlos Ortiz. He was an Argentinian evangelist. The book had an impact on me then, but combined with all I've learned and experienced I am enjoying it even more the second and third time around. This is just part of one of the chapters. The book is currently out of print but there are 11 used copies available at Amazon.com for next to nothing, if you feel like reading it. I give this book 5 stars.



"The primitive church was just starting. It was small to begin with, but they conquered. Wherever they went, all over the earth, one desire consumed them: to bring the whole world into the worship of Christ. They preached Jesus, not a systematic theology.

The aim of the primitive church was not to have a bigger church so that they could say, "Ours is larger than that one."

It wasn't to form separate denominations based on certain doctrines, calling themselves "methodists" or "presbyterians" No, their whole purpose was to expand the kingdom under Christ. They had unity because they were centered in Jesus.

Today we are not under Christ, but under other banners. So we have a broken church that is fractured into hundreds of denominations. But Jesus does not have many churches. The church is the bride of Christ, and He is not a polygamist. He is going to marry just one church.

Don't ask me which church I belong to, because there is just THE church. When you say "baptist," "methodist" or "lutheran".....be careful. Those names are bad words in the kingdom of God. Don't repeat them too often, because Jesus may wash your mouth out with soap if you keep on saying those things.



We cannot choose our brothers. All the children of God in the same area belong to the same church, whether they like it or not. We cannot say, "you are my brother but he is not my brother."

Who can choose his brothers in any family?....

.....The church is formed of all those who have the Son within them. Whether they are Anglicans, Seventh Day Adventists, or Roman Catholics---if they have the Son, they are in the kingdom. They belong to the family of God. It's not by philosophical approach, but by the life they have.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Our system of religion tells us that if we believe that Jesus is the way, that's okay. That's enough to be saved.

But it's not okay. Jesus in not the way just so that we can believe that He is the way, He is the way so that we can walk with Him. He is the truth not just so that I might believe He is the truth, but that I may trust Him. And He is the life not just so that I can believe that He is the life, but that I might live that life. We cannot just have a doctine or a concept, we must have the reality. The primitive Christians were called those of "the way." Is the Anglican church way? Are the methodists or the baptists the way?

No, the way is Jesus. It doesn't matter whether you are a member of a denomination or of an independant congregation. To be in "the way" is to have Him who is "the way."

If you are in Jesus, you are in the same way that I am. If you have the Son within you, you have the life of God.

It doesn't matter whether you believe in the millennium, or you don't believe in the millennium; whether you believe in the coming of Christ before or after the tribulation. Those things divide the people of God and have no value for living. They are just an intellectual approach to the philosophy of the Bible. They may be interesting, but they have nothing to do with whether or not we are brothers.

The church has a tendency to be a Christian club. A club is an institution in which all of the members agree to certain principles. If we start a new club, say a non-smokers and non-drinkers club, it's because all of us agree not to smoke and not to drink. So non-smoking and non-drinking is what unites us....

....When we gather together around principles or doctrines, that's a club. Anything that is centered in a set of rules or concepts is a club. But when we gather together around a living person whose name is Jesus, we are a church.....

....When we get converted, we become Baptists, or Episcopalians. We are rivals. It's like two clubs. Before we fought for our politics or for our football club. Now we fight for our doctrines. But it's the same flesh finding new channels to manifest itself.

I used to belong to a church which prayed kneeling down. We never prayed standing or seated. Once we went to visit another church where people stood to pray. We were scandalized. "Look at that!" These cannot be Christians. They pray standing." Today, the issue might be whether a brother is immersed or sprinkled in baptism, or whether he speaks in tongues or not. But all of these divisions are because we are more centered in doctrine and concepts than in life.

A person becomes your brother because he has been begotten by the Father. ......

.....He commands us to repent of our hatred of one another. And when He lives within us and we are led by His Spirit, we will accept each other as members of His body not because of doctrines, but simply because He has accepted us. We will be one church because we all share one common life----the life of Christ in us."