WHY PLANT CHURCHES, ANYWAY?
by Tim Keller, Senior Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church

The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for the 1) numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and the 2) continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else - not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes - will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting.

Jesus' Essential call was to plant churches: Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith. The "Great Commission" (Matt 28: 18-20) is not just a call to "make disciples", but to "baptize." In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshipping community with accountability and boundaries.

Bible's premise: The only way to truly be sure you are creating permanent new Christians is to plant new churches. Why? Much traditional evangelism aims to get a "decision" for Christ. Experience, however, shows us that many of these decisions disappear and never result in changed lives.

Why? Many (most?) decisions are not really conversions, but often only the beginning of a journey seeking God. Only a person who is being evangelized in the context of an on-going worshipping and shepherding community can be sure of finally coming home into vital, saving faith. This is why a leading missiologist like C. Peter Wagner can say, "Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven."

Paul's whole strategy was to plant urban churches. The greatest missionary in history, St. Paul, had a rather simple, two-fold strategy. First, he went into the largest city in the region (cf Acts 16:9,12), and second, he planted churches in each city (cf. Titus 1:5 "appoint elders in every town.") Once Paul had done that, he could say that he had preached the gospel in a region and that he had no more work to do there (cf. 15:19, 23).

Bible's premises: a) The way to most permanently influence a country was through its chief cities, and b) The way to most permanently influence a city was to plant churches in it.

New churches best reach new generations, new residents, and new people groups. Younger adults are disproportionately found in new congregations. Why? Older churches' traditions (time of worship, length of service, emotional responsiveness, sermon topics, leadership style, emotional atmosphere and thousands of other tiny customs) reflect the sensibilities of leaders from the older generations who have the influence and money to control church life.

New residents are better reached by new congregations. In long-established churches it may require a tenure of 10 years before you are allowed into places of leadership and influence but in a new church, new residents tend to have equal power with long-time area residents.

New social groups are better reached by new congregations. Examples: 1) New white-collar commuters in a former farming community will find older churches oriented to the original social group. 2) New Hispanics in a former Anglo community will find a new, deliberately bi-racial church far more able to create Ôcultural space' for newcomers than older churches. 3) New immigrant groups always can only be reached by new churches ministering in their own language. Summary: New congregations empower new people much more readily than older churches. This mean church planting is not only for "frontier regions" or "pagan" countries that we are trying to see become Christian. Christian countries will have to maintain vigorous, extensive church planting simply to stay Christian!

New churches best reach the unchurched. Dozens of studies confirm that the average new church gains most of its members (60-80%) from among people outside any worshipping community, while churches over 10-15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members from people moving from other congregations. Therefore new churches will bring 6-8 times better at drawing new people into the Body of Christ.

As a congregation ages, powerful internal institutional pressure lead it to allocate most of its resources and energy toward the concerns of it members, rather than toward those outside its walls. Older congregations therefore have a stability and steadiness that many people thrive on and need. Many non-Christians will only be reached by churches with long roots in the community and the trappings of stability and respectability. But new churches, of necessity, are forced to focus far more of its energies on the needs of its non-members and becomes much more sensitive to the sensibilities of non-believers. There is also a cumulative effect. In the first two years of our Christian walk, we have far more close, face-to-face relationships with non-Christians than we do later. Thus new Christians attract non-believers to services 5-10 times more than a long-time Christian. New believers beget new believers.

What does this mean practically? The only wide scale way to bring in lots of new Christians to the Body of Christ in a permanent way is to plant new churches.

Tim Keller is Senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City.