We continue our look at Planting Missional Churches.

Chapter 1 – Basics of Church Planting

This first chapter of Stetzer’s book seeks to act as an introduction to the content of the rest of the book. Stetzer has five “major messages” which form the backbone of the mission to plant churches. The chapter basically splits evenly  into  two sections. The first describing the ‘model’ Church Planter, the second, common objections to church planting.

It is interesting that from the outset Stetzer seems more concerned with the planter than the church which is planted, and to some degree places a heavy emphasis on the worker. So according to Stetzer, a church planter aught to have five key postures:

1. Missional
2. Incarnational
3. Theological
4. Ecclesiological
5. Spiritual

It doesn’t seem right to define what each of this means, it would be too much to take from Stetzer, read the book to find out how he views each.

There seems nothing problematic with his selection, nor does it seem lacking in any major respect. The five are reasonable, logical and after having read them obvious. There is nothing about character, but I think Stetzer will cover this latter. Right here I think Stetzer is considering the mindset of the planter not the life.

Objections to Church Planting

1. Large-church mentality
2. Parish-church mind-set
3. Professional Church syndrome
4. Rescue-the-perishing syndrome
5. Already-reached myth

Again read the book to find out the meaning of each, the comments below will help you understand the ideas.

The most common objections to church planting that I hear in Melbourne are 1, 4 & 5. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard the ‘professional church’ objection. Of the three I hear most often, ‘Rescue-the-perishing’ has to be number one. Many saints (usually denominational) have an idea that until the weak churches are strong, we don’t have the resources to begin new ministries. We must have a ‘minister in every church’ before we could consider sending a worker to the unchurched (at least in Victoria, sending a missionary to a 3rd world nation is fine, but never to our own).

“Large church” mentality is also quite common. Many churches want to grow a bit more and establish a stable ministry base before extending by planting another church or congregation. The economies of scale argument also features. One of the key problems is that over the years that I’ve heard this excuse, is has become increasingly clear that the church will never be large enough. We love to build our own kingdom too much, to see our patch flourish too much to invest in another. Churches that 5 years ago said we’ll plant when the congregation hits 200, now have 300 and still ‘need’ to be bigger before they plant. It reminds me of how John D. Rockefeller answered the question, How much money is enough? “Just a little bit more” and that’s the way many churches see it, just a few more people then we can plant a church.

Some also like to use excuse 5, there is already a church in the area, so lets help it, rather than plant. I’m not sure there can ever be too many churches, and when you look at the church to population ratio, it would seem these saints are suggesting that one church can reach more that 50,000 people. The population is increasing but we can’t increase the number of churches. The parish idea is out of control and not helpful anymore. Population density and not geographic boundaries define way we understand parishes.

Choice Quotes

… a newcomer needs to leave the church being amazed by the awesome God the church planter serves, not what a cool preacher the church has (p. 3).

I’ve recently been reading Ed Stetzer’s Book Planting Missional Churches, for a Church Planting Subject at College. To help me think through the book, I though I’d blog it. So over the next few weeks I’ll run through some of the more interesting arguments offered, pick out some choice quotes and attempt to critique the book from an Australian (really a Melbournian) perspective.

I’ll also try and think about how we see elements of topics discussed here in Victoria. How might we go about attempting to implement the models etc. put forth by Stetzer, and what obstacles are present which might hinder the planting of churches in Victorian culture, and Victorian Church culture.

This time we’ll just look at the preface.

Preface
I love reading prefaces, they are usually the place where the author outlines the background to the book as well as his or her intention in writing the book. One would hope it is one of the last chapters they write, so that they are abreast the scope of the whole in a way which can give one a road map for the book that follows. Ed doesn’t disappoint.

Ed writes not only with lots of scholarship and statistics behind him, but also with the insights he has after planting three churches (p. xi). Ed is constantly trying to bridge the gap between research and real-life church planting (p. xii).

He lets readers know that this book is a second (or revised) edition of his earlier book, Planting Churches in a Postmodern World, but now has a new title (p. xi). He has dropped the word ‘postmodern’ from the title of the book because he has found it to be unhelpful in a number of ways, which he enumerates (p. xi).

The book is said to be a “toolbox”, as there is “no magic formula” for church planting (p. xi). I often see saints hunting for the magic formula, the way to solve the issues they see in the church. On one level it is nice to see people looking for answers, but ultimately they are lazy, wanting a magic pill to cure their woes, while the hard work required to nut out the real issues is often shunned, simply because it’s hard, even though it would yield better results and insights.

Choice Quote

Effective church planting requires using tools that work in the context of the environment… And although the form is highly flexible, the purpose is the same: to see a biblical church planted in a local culture (p. xii, emphasis mine).

While Chapter 2 is written specifically with North America in Focus, much of it is very relevant to the Australian Context being the de facto 51st State.
The Attractional church is now fading within Victoria at least. With the state of the prevailing super-culture, the Church is simply unable to be attractive, to a large part, without compromising the Gospel. What interests the culture is not something the church is prepared to offer. Attracting crowds to hear the gospel, even one off events in some localities is difficult if not impossible.

“Good missionaries always study the culture as they develop their strategy” (p18)

While this is true and a touch brilliant, we as Victorians living within the Victorian context find it very difficult to see the culture we live in, for we view that culture through the cultural glasses of the very same culture.

In 2007 I went to Malawi and Zambia for a Mission as part of College. This was very helpful, as being in a different culture allowed me to critique the other culture, but at the same time it exposed me to the cultural norms of Victoria, for what I thought was a norm had been exposed as a cultural aspect of Victoria.

One such cultural aspect of the church that I noticed, is that ‘holiness’ in the Victorian context usually means avoiding sin. It is a negative action, that it, not doing wrong. In the Zambian context, holiness means doing what is right, pure and good. A positive action. The way we view holiness in these differing ways was only illuminated through changing my location, moving to a different culture allowed me to see that culture as well as my own.

In short perhaps we need to send our leaders away so that they better see our culture for what it is. Stetzer argues that the end of Christendom allows us to understand that Western Culture is not synonymous with Gospel culture (p 19). While true, many in the church have not noticed, or worse are still in denial, remembering the glory days of old, when the two were one.