“So, why are you planting a church, Jonathan?” As a new church planter, I often get this question. It made me think for a moment as I answered folks whom I met over coffee or at their houses asking people to partner financially to invest in our church plant for Sola Church.
Here are five reasons we believe in planting a church right here and right now.
1. Gospel Calling
“Therefore, go make disciples of all nation” (Matt 28:19-20). As my wife and I pursue this calling into church planting, we sense this is a gospel obedience to the Great Commission. We sense that if we do not plant, we are sinning against God.
Why are we for church planting? Because Jesus is for church planting. We do not plant churches so that we can reach the community, but the other way around.
Church planting work starts from the fervency of prayer. Prayer for lost souls getting saved leads to evangelizing to the lost. The lost being evangelized and saved leads to making disciples. Making disciples leads to multiplying churches by engaging kingdom impact.
Why plant? Because of the Great Commission of Gospel calling. I love what Jonathan Leeman said about church planting rooted in the Scripture.
“Why does every young church planter these days feel compelled to articulate a “mission statement” and a “vision statement,” which will then be regularly rehearsed on stage, in videos, and all the church’s literature? If you had asked pastors for the first two thousand years of church history what their mission statement was, they would have looked confused by the question and then probably opened their Bibles and pointed to the last verses of Matthew 28.”
2. Disciples Making
Someone may say, “Don’t we have plenty of churches already?”
The truth is that we do not have enough churches, and the reality there are more surviving churches (dying churches) than thriving churches.
Too often, because of church politics, internal fighting, and conflict within the body, churches have forgotten to keep the main thing the main thing. As a result, churches have become more about joyless legalism and lifeless moralism, which is not centered on the gospel of missional work.
The way to counterculture against churches closing down is to open up new ones through church planting!
3. Flourishing Community
“I will make you fishers of men” (Matt 4:19).
I can almost hear people saying in their minds, “Well, new church plants don’t help the other existing churches in the area. You should have the existing ones first and then think about planting!”
Too often, established churches struggle with the idea of church planting are two reasons. (1) Failure to faithfully make disciples, (2) Failure to raise mature Christians.
As if you would, the church has become more about being an aquarium of hoarding fishes, rather than being a village of catching fishes of a flourishing community of fishermen.
4. Strategic Moment
The apostle Paul in the early church has laid out a strategy for planting churches as he has planted in urban areas (Acts 16:9).
Where do you catch many fish? Where there are many fishes. If you would, where would you reach the lost? Where there are many lost people.
In the midst of where darkness seems too overwhelming in our society, it is the opportunity for the church to shine even brighter. When sin abounds, the gospel abounds even more (Romans 5:20).
D.L. Moody said it well, “Cities are centers of influence. Water runs downhill and the highest hills in America are the great cities. If we can stir them up, we can stir the whole country.”
5. World Outreach
Senses/statistics have proven, that with more church planting more new converts, new generations, and new residents are brought forth.
If you want your church to look more like the earth church in Acts, there’s no experience like you will have than church planting work.
While looking at the history of American Revivalism through the lens of our reality today, each previous evangelistic movement gradually ended due to a lack of discipleship put forth from healthy churches after the “revival” ended and the “evangelistic crusade” left town.
Best Time to Plant a Church is Now
There’s an old proverb that goes like this, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”
I believe one of the biggest challenges in reaching the urban community with the gospel is poor gospel stewardship all across the cities throughout America.
The church becomes like Jonah. The believers are running away from the people as it makes them feel uncomfortable.
People are moving into the cities much faster than churches are moving into the cities. The Great Commission mandate of Christ is the movement of the world. There has never been a more crucial moment such as now.