Good practice for any considering Church Planting

The Aims of this document

It will be apparent from what follows that the good planter must be a long term thinker. Off the peg plants do not usually work. He/she must read the mission climate and culture to which they are sent. Planters need to know the choice of tools, or models, which are available to them in forming new types of Church. This document can only open the subject, it cannot fully equip a would be planter. It is not a “Church Planting for Dummies” manual.

The list of instincts are a call for Leaders of sending churches and Planters to be:
Creative in the face of a new mission era
Strategic in determining mission goals, and matching them to mission resources
Theological in letting principles determine action
Balanced in matching goals of ongoing mission and maturity
Far sighted in pursuing the path to the planted church’s interdependence within the wider Church.

What do you mean by Church ?

While our history has disposed us towards thinking of sacred buildings, parochial areas of responsibility and congregational gatherings, this implicit definition is not assumed here. Church Plants could be congregations or cells, in traditional or secular venues, serving networks or neighbourhoods, meeting on any day of the week and for any combination of age groups.

Instincts 

Church Planting cannot be reduced to formulas, because each plant is unique : a combination of prayer, planning, people, places and processes. This does not mean there are no principles and anything goes. Quite the reverse. There are different missionary climates across the country to assess. There are many models of planting to know, different starting points to choose. Skill is needed to assess, and then match, the mission task with the appropriate mission resources. 

Fundamental to right judgement will be the presence of the INSTINCTS of the cross cultural missionary.

1 Our mission field is a radically new one

“There is no precedent for a mission to a culture that thought it had been converted when it hadn't and then publicly discarded the Christian faith.”
Harold TURNER : New Zealand Missiologist 

“The Church has got to realise it’s missionary responsibilities. We live in a society, whether that be urban or rural, which is now basically second or even third generation pagan once again; and we cannot simply work on the premise that all we have to do to bring people to Christ is to ask them to remember their long-held, but dormant faith. … in so many instances we have to go back to basics; we are in a critical missionary situation.” 
Bishop Gordon BATES. Bishop of Whitby CA News April 1998

Church planters are called to be creative in evangelising and so forming indigenous churches. This is so that those who have rejected what they thought was Christianity, and those who have never heard of it in a meaningful way, can become disciples of Jesus Christ and integrated into fresh forms of his Church, yet attune to their own culture. These missionary communities then become bridgeheads into that society.

2 Past forms are an insufficient guide to present demands

“We must stop starting with the Church”
Rev Bob HOPKINS ACPI and echoed by Canon Robert WARREN

It is apparent at the close of the 20th century, that not only existing forms of institutional church, but also many earlier church plants, which have been too much like clones of existing church, do not connect with those outside church.

These people may be those alienated from church by personal past history, those distanced from her by social grouping , those cut off by geographic factors, those of the younger generation growing up in a different world, or those for whom post-modernism is their intellectual landscape. We must work to penetrate beneath forms to principles, informed by a robust theology of church planting, if we are to create churches which can connect with these groupings.

To make thought through fresh starts, the shape and model of a church plant should be formed by three considerations, taken in this order, for the theological reason that Mission should shape the Church, not vice versa. 
1 Who it is for - what is the Mission goal – who are we sent to ? 
2 Who is it by - who are the Mission Resources – or the sent team ?
3 Who is it with - who are the Mission partners –or sending churches?

Such a process will clarify whether a particular church plant is for network or neighbourhood, for the de-churched or the non churched. It will disclose whether the team is pioneer – responding to weakness - or progression – building on strength, and whether it should be by cell or congregation. It will make clear what forms/ models of partnership with others such as runner, seed, graft or transplant will suit the task

Different starting points, diverse pace & expectations, varied team selection & size and thus tailored content of training for the planting team will flow from working with these dynamics. 

3 We work from theological foundations and motives

“The mission of the church is to be understood, can only be rightly understood, in terms of the Trinitarian model.” 
Lesslie NEWBIGIN Gospel in Pluralist Society 

There is a mental danger among evangelicals that Church Planting is reduced to a tactical option in evangelism. Rather it must be rooted in the nature and scope of the Mission of God himself.

The Trinity provides a rich base for seeing the Church as a mission minded community. The loving outward action of the Trinity, in sending Christ, models to us a Church that should be ready to sacrifice to launch new initiatives, rather than build on existing numbers. The style of the Incarnation underpins an attitude that welcomes a vulnerable process of cross cultural mission, rather than operate only in strength. The proclamation by Jesus of the Kingdom shows the scope of the Mission as wider than just Evangelism. As exemplified in Acts, Jesus and the Resurrection are the core and content of the message. The changes in the early Church of Acts, especially in chapters 8 to12, demonstrate the Church as a missionary body, is shaped by its God given experiences and challenges in mission, rather than trapped by its previous history or existing membership. The sweep of salvation history reveals a Lord and Father God who lives in Trinitarian community, who sends out the Son to attract and call a new community of disciples, and a Holy Spirit who directs and changes that missionary community, so that it can continue to diversify and reproduce to reach out into all God’s creation.

The prior involvement of God in mission is of deep significance and incomparable encouragement. We only ever join mission, we never start it. The Church does not do mission, it is mission. Like Jesus in John’s Gospel, we are searching for what the Father is already doing and seeking to follow him, who always goes ahead of us in His corporate Mission., through the activity of the Holy Spirit in human lives. So Church Planting is never to be reduced to human activity. We can neither plant, nor form the church, by human forces alone.

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.”
St Paul. Letter to Corinthian Christians

Good practice will focus on what a human planter, such as Paul or Apollos, can do – but it must take note of God’s part in the process too, and live in these dynamics. 
Such theological instincts can deliver church planters from activism when things go well and from despair when mission is discouraging. For those who are unfamiliar with such thinking, the writing of Dr Stuart Murray in Church Planting – Laying Foundations will be relevant.

4 Church planting always involves two considerations

“A church without evangelism has lost its heart. Evangelism without the church has lost its body.”
Rev George LINGS ; Director The Sheffield Centre

The phrase church planting contains two words. Planting conveys the beginning of something new, reflecting the task of evangelism. Church is what is being begun anew – a fresh Christian community. The good church planter will keep working at two tasks flowing from planting Churches – mission and maturity. The failure to address the second would lead the plant to fail to grow up. The drift away from the first will lead to the inability to grow out. Church Plants that failed to thrive can often trace their demise to inattention to one of these strands. Some Plant Leaders, by temperament and training, are more adept at the evangelism roles. This is excellent but insufficient, and the next instinct listed can help keep the essential balance.

5 Use the life cycle of planting to get good long term goals

The parallels to the life cycle of a human being have been popularised by Bruce Patrick, Baptist Minister in New Zealand and widely taught by Bob Hopkins and others in the UK. This stresses that while a good process towards the start of a church plant can be known and planned for, this is only the beginning. 

Churches need to mature to adulthood. Maturity may be measured in several ways. 

a) Progress made from dependence on the sending church, into an independence by which the young church knows its identity and explores self determination. The further stage is into a yet richer adult life, know as interdependence, which takes greater relational skills and self awareness. This fits well with an Anglican doctrine of Church being both Parochial and Episcopal., Catholic and Local. All plants need to aim for growth to Interdependence. 

b) Progress made so that the planted church is developing the resources and awareness of its own call to continue to send out. A measure of maturity is the potential to reproduce. Responsible procreation is one measure of adulthood. A useful perspective could be to state, that until a church has sent out a church, which has in turn sent out a church, it has not fulfilled its potential. Church Plants need to think beyond their own survival, to becoming sending churches. 

c) International Mission thinkers came to the similar conclusions in the mid 19th century and Henry Venn formulated the 3 self principle. A church plant should be encouraged to become being self governing, self financing and self reproducing.

All these principles will need recognition from, and affirmation by, the sending church, who may need to be taught to let go. Thus any paternalistic language about plants such as “daughters” or limiting description of their function as only being other “Services”, is to be resisted. This longer view needs to be established as an agreed goal of good practice, in the setting up of church plants 

Maturity and Viability became yet sharper issues at the end of the 1990’s, with declining clergy numbers and limited financial resources. CA planters, or Curates, may not be replaced on leaving a church plant and will need to think ahead beyond their own departure. Firstly discussion with the Diocese, about continuity and development of the young church’s leadership should be a topic. As a fall back position, planning their replacement by training lay voluntary teams to follow on from them will be necessary, but there are real limitations to this route. It would be tragic mismanagement if the pioneering work of the leader and the initial lay team was lost by default.

Time Scales for Progress

This is a complex combination of factors. Stories of large teams, sent to their own cultural groups where there are many existing relationships do occur, can lead to unwarranted optimism about very different mission scenarios. Mission in Japan and Korea are very different stories. Generally speaking the following mixture needs considering and is related to all the 5 Instincts but especially 1 and 2.

1 The Receptivity level in the mission Task

2 The Effectiveness of the mission Resource

3 The Support level from the mission Partners

A mythical worked example in a “difficult/ tough ” area

Year 1 Planter arrives and gets to know the sending Church, by living among the people she/he begins to make relationships among the target group
Year 2 Planter begins selection and training of a small team, at the end of which it is sent out from the sending church and meets as a cell.
Year 3 Joint projects in community development and social events are planned and start off, continuing in future years.
Year 4 Small numbers of interested people attend events and small groups that explore faith
Year 5 A few Cells start, from the team and from the local community 
Year 6 Celebration across the cells begins and one or two cells may multiply
Year 7 Should the planter stay or move on ? Who should come to replace her/him and will the sending church and diocese think it is worthwhile ? 

A mythical worked example in a “receptive/same culture ” area

Year 1 Planter arrives and gets to know the sending Church, forms and trains team of 20+ and by living among the people she/he begins to make relationships among the target group. Diocesan subsidy agreed.
Year 2 Plant publicly launched, within months drawing early new members from new Christians to the area, return of the lapsed, and outsiders who already had some interest. Children and Youth work begins both among families of the new church and with school contacts. Small groups to disciple existing Christians and nurture new ones are formed.
Year 3 Initial building is too small and a fresh larger venue found with facilities for different ages groups. Young church increases in diversity as newer Christians come in and exercise ministry.
Year 4 Questions are asked about repeating the planting process for another area of similar type. Diocesan subsidy ends and moves to make the plant a District church within the parish.
Year 5 Pioneer moves on and another full time leader with training skills is appointed, to build on the recent past.