Facilitating Church Planting Movements #3 - Eight shifts in church planting

8 Shifts in Church Planting

In his research Ed Stetzer has identified shifts in the way new churches are being planted. These are shifts which have been happening over the last few years. The bulleted list are Stetzer's words. My observations and thoughts follow each bullet.

• From Programs to Processes

Not even great programs worked every time in the past. It is most important to understand the people we are trying to reach and develop processes to accomplish that purpose. So, if the issue is discipleship, planters may use existing programs and materials (e.g. The Alpha Course, The Purpose Driven Life) or they may create their own process which fits the community they are working to reach with the Gospel.

• From Models to Missions

For many it was easy to copy models of others because planters wanted to copy others' success in their own context. In this way, planters didn't always do the hard work of unlocking the missional keys to their own community. Planters certainly continue to learn "best practices" from other church planters, but they are also doing the hard work of connecting with their community. They carefully look at where God is working and with their lay leaders they are fearless in trying new ways to plant seeds of the Gospel in their community regardless of the risk of failure.

• From Attractional to Incarnational

Attracting people to a church with slick advertising, better programs and good strategy is not necessarily bad, but today it is not enough. Some attractional churches have led to a
non-participatory Gospel as an unintended consequence. The attractional approach is a come and see approach.

Leaders that "break the missional code" are recognizing that non-relational evangelism is a contradiction. Leaders that move from attracting prospects to incarnating the Gospel are the ones that break the code. Result of the attractional approach? We spent 30 years fixing up our churches and 30 years later our culture is more lost and our churches are filled with people who are less committed to Christ's mission. The incarnational approach is more interested in the harvest than in the barn!

• Professional to Passionate

1 Peter 4:10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.

Stetzer says that "each one" really means "each one"! He points out for example that the "house church movement" is gaining traction as well as many alternate forms, and it is being done by gifted lay people as well as professional ordained.

We need to lower the bar of what it means to be planting a church and we need to raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple. i.e. You can’t reproduce a church that took a million dollars to plant, no matter how successful it is. If can't even reproduce it self because the bar for what success looks like is too high!

• Seating to Sending

Many new church starts begin conversation in their first two years about when they will plant a new mission themselves. Planters in those churches don't hold so tightly to their "members" that they are fearful about sending some of them off as a launch team to start a new church. They believe that God will continue to bring new people to "fill the seats" of those who are carrying the mission of Jesus to a new location.

• New members to Disciples

It is not that the concept of membership is unimportant, but rather that the concept of discipleship is so much more important. Membership process has a beginning and an ending point - when the person is officially "received." Discipleship is ongoing.

• Mission by addition to Exponential Planting

All healthy things reproduce. In order for the LCMS to become a mission planting movement mission planting must again become one of the fundamental marks of a Lutheran church – not the oddity or the exception. There is never a "good" time to send money, people and energy somewhere else. But - as they say the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago -- the second best time is right now!

• Monuments to Movements

It seems that every pastor really wants to get into mission if only his church was a little bigger! Buildings, space and property do matter, but many new church planting pastors spend much more time praying, thinking and teaching their people about being involved in God's mission than they do working on buildings. Buildings are only a means to accomplishing the purpose of the Great Commission.