This past month I read three church planting books. One of my goals in life is to be involved in planting new churches that reach those who established churches cannot.
Launch by Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas tells the story of the launch of Journey Church of the City in New York. The book is short, sweet, and aims at being intensely practical. Searcy comes out of the Purpose Driven world and unashamedly presents a Saddleback-esque style of planting. It’s all about launching big, or gathering a crowd for Sunday services. The book gives step by step instructions on everything from finding a meeting place to raising funds.
Exponential is written by Dave and Jon Ferguson, the two brothers who lead Chicago’s Community Christian Church and the New Thing Network. Two things stand out: 1) They say “anyone can do it!” again and again, and leave you excited about what God can do through you and your friends. 2) It describes the culture of apprenticeship that has allowed CCC to explode into a multi-site and church planting movement. Every single position within the church is backed up with an apprentice, ready to take the reins at a moments notice. This is necessary for any church interested in sending out people to plant new churches.
Church in the Making by Ben Arment is a totally different animal. I often found myself cheering and turning the pages as quickly as I could. He plays up his own failures and brags about other’s successes. Arment’s goal is to help Church planters really be prepared and understand what makes a church plant succeed. What I found most important was his deep emphasis on cultivation of relationships before launch. This encourages me that the time and relationships I am building now can have eternal significance.
As much as I enjoyed all three books, I find myself asking two questions:
1) Could there a simpler way? The financial and leadership burdens needed to plant churches as these books present does not seem reproducible.
2) Who will it really reach? Often, new churches just shift Christians away from existing churches. When I look at my friends and neighbors, many of who are cynical dechurched types or frankly just don’t care about spirituality, I’m not sure they’d get up on Sunday morning to check it out.
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