Tuesday 5 May 2009

Fresh wave of Church planting

I am becoming convinced that we are on the verge of a fresh wave of church planting across not only New Frontiers as a whole in the UK but in our area of influence extending as it does across the east of England, into Europe and now small new doors of opportunity into totally new settings; Turkey and Canada for example.
There is nothing so honouring to the cause Christ than to saturate all people centres with New Testament flavour churches. There is nothing so damaging to the cause of Christ than for communities to be familiar with churches that are weak, frail, lacking in biblical conviction and practice, theologically flawed and culturally hopelessly out of touch with people. Weak Churches are not new. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth ‘your meetings do more harm than good’. Who would have wanted to be an elder in that situation!
We have a responsibility to make as Arthur Wallis said a ‘diligent attempt’ to recreate New Testament church values and life in our day, in our churches.
Each generation must hold onto key New Testament values and faithfully replicate them in their own generation, in turn passing them on to the children of their day.
Church planting gives scope for more gifting to emerge, more communities to be reached, more preachers to emerge, more pastoral gifting to grow, more of everything. Church planting is not the only activity to be involved with as some churches need to consolidate and grow large to punch into a bigger weight of impact in their communities. Jesus has a unique plan and season for each church and each fresh new season. I am convinced though that all churches need to be involved in planting churches.
The short video I have attached to this might just stir some who watch it to think about the adventure, risk, challenge, excitement of church planting into Europe. If we do not seize the day who will?

1 comment:

Kjetil said...

"Church planting gives scope for more gifting to emerge, more communities to be reached, more preachers to emerge, more pastoral gifting to grow, more of everything."

Amen! This is true, I enjoy reading this and I might quote you on this one!
Kjetil