Planting Churches

Bob Roberts jump starts me. Like any great thinker/leader, his perspective is always about 6 degrees from what you'd expect--jarring enough to make you think twice, not so jarring that you dismiss what he has to say.

Church Planting is part of what it means to be missional. Here's Bob's take on why we do it. It needs to be as normal a part of the life of a congregation as having a worship service (maybe not that regular...yet). Generous churches give money, time, and people. That's just what it means to be generous.
Bob's full post is here.

For the past 25 years, over and over again, the reason given for starting churches is because it is the best known method of evangelism. Sooooo . . . we start churches to do evangelism. Acts didn’t do that. Jerusalem saw a church emerge out of evangelism, and it wasn’t just “pray the prayer”. Antioch was the same. It was disciples living in the society first and then a church emerged. I write about this in my book The Multiplying Church.

Let me give you some other reasons, that I think are huge. First, it has to be the context of the Kingdom. If we focus on the Gospel of salvation, we get converts and a Sunday event. If we focus on the Gospel of the Kingdom, we still get people who follow Jesus, BUT we also focus on the “reconciliation of all things” in the world and in the community. This means that “church” becomes a force for good and transformation, not just a Sunday event. I could talk and write on this all day. We have so narrowed the Great Commission to baptisms that we have unintentionally marginalized the church in society.