Why should churches plant churches?

Yesterday and today, I was on a panel discussing church planting at a leadership meeting in Indianapolis for churches in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

So, why should churches plant churches? Here are some of the answers of the men on my panel.

1. Not all people want to worship the way you worship. So, you must start other churches with different worship styles to reach different kinds of people.

2. If your church has had a history of church planting, you must seek to preserve the heritage of your church.

3. If you study the NT (particularly the book of Acts), you will discover that NT churches sent out missionaries and that those missionaries proclaimed the gospel that resulted in starting churches. You must plant churches to be a true NT church.

4. We reproduce what we are. Church planters should reproduce themselves by investing in other church planters.

5. Church planting has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to reach more new people for Christ. It's been said that it takes 42 members of an existing church to reach 1new person for Christ. It takes 8 members of a church plant to reach 1 new person for Christ.

6. If you have been personally impacted and grown by church planting ministry, you should want to provide the same growth experiences for others.

7. If you have a heart for cultural diversity, you must seek to plant culturally diverse churches.

Care to guess which is my answer?

Related posts:

The urgent need for North American church planting

How not to be a church planting pirate

Churches must plant churches

8 ways to encourage church planters

Have you ever been to a meeting where you were a presenter and you realized that you needed to learn much, much more than anyone else in the room? That happened to me today.

I was on a panel in Indianapolis to talk about issues related to being a sponsoring church for church plants. One of the questions was, "How do you encourage church planters?" I had a couple of lame things to say. But the other guys on the panel had some great things to say. I took notes. And in my heart I prayed, "Jesus, help me to be more encouraging to our church planters. I repent!"

Here are 8 great ideas for sponsoring churches.

1. Establish regular coaching/mentoring/encouraging meetings for coffee, breakfast, or lunch.

2. Remember significant dates like birthdays for the planter and his spouse and their anniversaries.

3. Keep an ongoing prayer list for the planter and pray regularly for the planter; then share with the planter, "I prayed for you about... How is that going?"

4. Include your church planter in something special that your church offers such as a special event or a concert.

5. Invite the planter to church staff meetings.

6. Invite the church planter to preach at your church.

7. Establish a missional champion in your church who will directly relate to the church planter.

8. Make visits to the planter's weekend worship service a regular part of your connection process.

Care to add to this list?

Related posts:

Training church planters

Church planting centers

Joining a church planting team

Encouragement to pray

Chad Allen led our staff in a time of extended prayer yesterday. We split up into 8 groups and travled throughout our building with various prayer topics to lift up in various places. It was a special time. Before we split up, Chad led us in a devotional. Here are a few notes. May his words encourage you to pray today.

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We want to make prayer something that's normal, not formal.

We want to make sure that what's in our hearts gets to our lips. 

We want to help you take the next step in your prayer life. 

James 1:6 says we are to ask in faith, without any doubting. If we doubt, we are like the waves. So, pray confidently, expectantly, boldly. 

I John 5:14-15 says that we can have confidence if we pray in accordance with God's will. If we pray according to God's will, He will answer. He hears us. He's listening. So, remember, God is willing to respond. 

Mark 11:22 says, "And Jesus answered them, 'Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, "Be taken up and thrown into the sea," and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.'" Don't tell God how big your mountain is, but tell your mountain how big God is. So, pray in faith.