Americans are in
the grip of a passion for starting or "planting" new churches. The
movement is among the most active and passionate in American Christianity and
includes a variety of denominations and faith traditions. The push promises
to shape not just religious life, but society as a whole, as new congregations
work to influence and assist the communities around them.
Certainly, this
is not the first era in which church planting has been intense in the U.S.,
but rather it is part of a cyclical pattern. And the current effort is not limited
to our borders; Christians are busy planting churches throughout the world -
at times secretly, as in China, but elsewhere as well. The drive to start new
churches at home affects this nation in a way that evangelism abroad does not,
though, and it bears special notice.
Church "planters,"
as they are called, are Johnny Appleseeds, hoping the seeds they sow will mature
into trees to feed many people. Planters focus more on people than on buildings.
Church plants commonly meet in coffee shops, schools, office buildings and hotels.
A year-old church in the Portland, Ore., suburb of Tigard, meets in a neighborhood
pub; during the week, the 120 members avidly keep in touch through web forums.
This latest movement
inspires ambitious plans: Some institutions have goals of planting thousands
of new churches. Planters envision new churches spawning other new churches
that spawn still more new ones in a viral progression. The motto of Lake Ridge
Church in the Atlanta suburb of Cumming, Ga., is, "Our vision is to glorify
God by planting a missional church that will eventually plant other churches."
Church plants can
include a number of features:
• Evangelical and Pentecostal denominations, burning to spread the gospel
and win converts, contribute most church plants, especially big Baptist churches
that can sponsor new congregations and train members to launch them.
• Mainline denominations plant churches in hope of boosting and diversifying
membership and shifting their focus away from the maintenance of shrinking churches.
• Church planters come to their task from a variety of backgrounds. The
movement depends heavily on players from outside the traditional hierarchy,
including lay leaders and parachurch organizations. Many church planters are
ordained clergy or lay leaders with denominational support. Others are entrepreneurs
weary of or at odds with institutional religion.
• Most plants are in suburbs, though planters don't always use demographic
research to scout locations. Research might identify the direction of urban
growth so a church can buy property and wait for the suburbs to reach it.
• Many planters focus efforts on ethnic or immigrant communities -- particularly
Latinos, Koreans, East Indians and Africans. The Episcopal Church, for example,
has begun numerous Sudanese churches. GenX leaders often begin urban, multicultural
plants, following the "emerging church" model that embraces spiritual
questioning, new forms of worship and youth culture.
Why it matters
New church plants
have the potential to reshape U.S. churchgoing and affect the communities churches
are locating in, whether they are new suburbs or urban areas previously abandoned
by churches. Scholars say that most recent church growth is within the few largest
churches, but the planting movement also is built on the premise of stimulating
huge growth, albeit through the creation of many smaller churches.
Questions for
reporters
• Consider
a story comparing a new, small church with an example of the other big phenomenon
in church growth - megachurches.
• The planting movement is fun to cover because of the fervent passion
and expression of many lay people and clergy involved. Their pioneering enthusiasm
is charismatic; stories of new beginnings, as young churches with high ideals
take off, make excellent coverage and they highlight interesting trends in contemporary
religion - evangelism, grassroots religious leadership and the exploration by
Protestants outside structural conventions.
• Little is known about church planting from an academic perspective, so
it's early for a definitive overview. Still, reaching several national leaders
representing a variety of views may help give a bigger picture.
• Planting is difficult work, requiring unusual individuals with superb
social skills, great passion, resistance to failure and the charisma to attract
and hold a community. Parachurch organizations and planting mentors help enormously
with training and financial and moral support. Consider profiling a new planter
and a mentor who are working together, or writing about a group of would-be
planters going through training, then re-visit them in a year.
• Church plantings are also called church "starts." "Multiplication"
is another term used. Many churches approach the subject through offices on
growth. Most denominations have a church planting office or research office
asking, "Where can we put new churches? Where's the growth? Where is our
population moving to?" Consider calling these growth experts at the national
offices of denominations that interest you to learn how your local churches
fit into their plans.
• Consider focusing on the trend in using lay planters to begin new churches
by finding such church starts locally and talking with national experts about
what you find.
Click
the map for interview sources
in your state and region
National
PARACHURCH
ORGANIZATIONS
Parachurch organizations are quasi-denominational national or regional networks
that represent new forms of institutional cooperation. "Paras" usually
work with, not for, denominations. They play a critical role in screening, coordinating,
training, financing, supporting and mentoring pastors and lay volunteers. Some
are not-for-profit; others are conventional businesses.
• See
a Wikipedia
definition and list of parachurch organizations.
• See
the Hartford
Institute for Religion Research's page
on parachurch organizations.
• Stadia:
New Church Strategies is a California-based parachurch organization that
finds, trains, deploys and supports church planters. The 51-year-old organization
began as the Northern California Evangelistic Association. It aims at a "church
multiplication movement" through regional networks of church planters.
It is affiliated with the nondenominational Christian Churches and Churches
of Christ movements. Stadia's goal is to build 5,500 new churches by 2025. Read
Stadia's pre-assessment
brochure and pre-screening form. Stadia's three-day, $1,200 church-planting
lab is the organization's system for training church planting leaders, coaches
and mentors and building church multiplication leaders who can plant reproducible
Christian Churches across North America. Contact the Rev. Bob Harrington, national
network and planter care director, 615-790-0104, bharrington@stadia.cc.
• Passion
for Planting is a church-planting support ministry begun in 2002 by planters
from New Life Christian Church in Centreville, Va. The nonprofit provides organizational
resources, consulting and project management services for newly formed churches.
Contact Pat Furgerson, 866-342-5264, pat@church-planting.net.
Passion for Planting is one of the organizing forces behind the 2006
National New Church Conference April 25-27 in Orlando, Fla., billed as "the
largest gathering of church-planting leaders in North America." Contact
Terri Saliba, Terri@church-planting.net.
• SeedStories,
based in Australia, draws participation from the United States. It aims to be
a global church-planting community.
• House
to House is a publishing organization owned by DOVE Christian Fellowship
International in Lititz, Pa., focused on helping people involved with small
groups (cell groups) and house churches. Contact Ron Myer, a church-planting
specialist on the leadership team: 717-627-1996, ronm@DCFI.org.
• Church
Plant Media in Columbia, Mo., is a web company that works with church plants.
Contact Dustin Stearman, 800-409-6631.
CHURCHES
Most denominations
and many churches have offices of church growth. Here are a few:
• The
Vineyard Community of
Churches has a 20-year history of planting 850 churches. Read about Vineyard's
origins.
Steve Nicholson is national church planting coordinator and senior pastor of
the Evanston, Ill., Vineyard, which he and his wife, Cindy, helped plant. They
also helped begin churches in the Chicago neighborhoods of Humboldt Park, Lincoln
Park and Hyde Park; Mundelein, Joliet and Downer's Grove, Ill.; and churches
in Washington, D.C., Minnesota, England, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Contact
847-328-4544, steven@evanstonvineyard.org.
• The
Missionary Church,
based in Fort Wayne, Ind., is an evangelical church committed to church planting
and world missions. It has 180,000 members in 1,700 congregations worldwide,
roughly 400 of them in the U.S. Bill Malick founded the Church
Multiplication Training Center. Contact Greg Getz, director of the pastoral
leadership program, 260-747-2027, pliadmin@mcusa.org.
• The
Christian and Missionary Alliance, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., has churches
in every state, with about 350,000 believers in nearly 2,000 churches. Contact
Michael D. "Mick" Noel, assistant vice president who directs multiplication,
719-599-5999, ChurchMultiplication@cmalliance.org.
• The
North American Baptist Conference, with offices in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., is
a family of some 400 churches with about 74,000 attendees in the U.S. and Canada.
Church planting is an emphasis. See the denomination's resources
on planting. Contact Dan Wesolowski, 630-495-2000 ext. 213.
• The
Southern Baptist Convention's North
American Mission Board oversees church planting for the denomination. The
web site has information in two areas: The church-planting
group, which trains, plans, supports and mentors church planters, and the
church-planting
"village," an online resource area. See a list
of SBC staff in charge of various aspects of church planting, including
many ethnic or cultural affinity churches. Contact Van Kicklighter, vkicklighter@namb.net,
field partner service rep, an expert in lay participation in church planting,
or Jose "Joe" Antonio Hernandez of Alpharetta, Ga., who directs the
church planting group's mentoring team, 770-410-6217, jhernandez@namb.net.
• The
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a mainline Protestant denomination,
has started about 350 new congregations in the last four years, representing
the denomination's fastest growth since the late 19th century. The church plants
are diverse, with Hispanic, Asian, Haitian, African-American and Anglo members.
Contact Rick Morse, team leader for New
Church Ministry, in Indianapolis, 317-713-2520, rmorse@churchextension.org.
• The
United Methodist Church directs church planting through its office
of new church development. That office is part of the Evangelization and
Church Growth unit of the General Board of Global Ministries, directed by the
Rev. Sam Dixon. Contact Dixon, 212-870-3848.
• At
The Evangelical Free Church of America, Kathy Carter is in charge of USA
Church Planting. Contact Carter at the Minneapolis headquarters, 800-745-2202,
churchplanting@efca.org.
INDIVIDUALS
• Todd Hunter is president of Alpha USA, which provides an introductory
course in Christianity used in 7,000 churches nationwide, and former president
of Vineyard USA. Hunter has been involved in church planting and leadership
development for 25 years. He's in Eagle, Idaho. Contact 208-377-1721, toddhunter@alphausa.org.
• Author and researcher C. Kirk Hadaway is director of research for the
Episcopal Church Center. He has written widely on the subject of church growth
and also worked with the United Church of Christ and Southern Baptist denominations.
Contact 212-922-5331, khadaway@episcopalchurch.org.
• Donald E. Miller is Firestone Professor of Religion at the University
of Southern California, executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic
Culture and director of the university's school of religion. His books include
Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium
(University of California Press, 1999), for which he studied the Vineyard, Calvary
Chapel and Hope Chapel. Contact 213-740-8562, crcc@usc.edu.
• Scott Cormode, assistant dean for institutional research at the Claremont
School of Theology, can discuss church growth. His Almond
Springs web site has case studies to help clergy and others think through
issues common to church growth and life. Contact 909-447-2532, scormode@cst.edu.
• Scott Thumma, an expert on church growth and new religious structures
at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, says that
the vast majority of Americans see religious identity as flexible - something
that individuals can assemble for themselves, apart from institutions or denominations
- and that new forms such as megachurches and church planting can be seen in
the light of this American insistence on individuality of experience. Contact
860-509-9571, sthumma@hartsem.edu.
• The Rev. Gary Scheer, senior minister at Victor Valley Christian Church
in Hesperia, Calif., coaches and mentor church planters. Contact 760-244-4448,
gscheer@vvcc.com.
• The Rev. Ed Stetzer wrote Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age
(Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003) and Planting Missional Churches
(Broadman & Holman, to be published in May 2006). He is missions specialist
and research team director at the North American Missions Board of the Southern
Baptist Convention and is also a pastor at Lake Ridge Church, which he helped
found in Cumming, Ga., an Atlanta suburb. Contact 770-410-6378, estetzer@namb.net.
• Ian Evison is director of research at the Alban Institute, a Herndon,
Va. ecumenical, interfaith organization that supports congregations through
book publishing, educational seminars, consulting services and research. Ask
what research Alban has done in the areas of church growth and new church starts.
Contact 800-486-1318 or 703-964-2700.
• The Rev. Joe Samuel Ratliff is pastor of the 12,000-member Brentwood
Baptist Church in Houston. He is also chairman of the board of trustees for
Morehouse College's School of Religion. He is co-author of Church Planting
in the African American Community (Judson Press, 2002). Contact him through
his executive assistant, Vernastene J. Davis, 713-852-1412, vjdavis@brentwoodbaptist.org.
• The
Rev. Michael F. Thurman is pastor of Montgomery, Ala.'s historic Dexter Avenue
King Memorial Baptist Church, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led. Previously,
Thurman was the Southern Baptist Convention's leader for African-American church
planting. Contact 334-263-3970, Dexterchurch@bellsouth.net.
• The
Rev. Hozell C. Francis is pastor of New Vision Community Church in Inglewood,
Calif. He wrote Church Planting in the African-American Context (Zondervan,
1999). Contact 323-737-0178.
• James
Sok is a church planting and development strategist for the Illinois Baptist
State Association. Sok, who is Korean-American, works with Asian-American churches
and leads seminars nationally for Asian-American planters and those who will
train them. His office is in Springfield. Contact 630-452-5100, jamessok_4@hotmail.com.
• Uriah
Kim is professor of Hebrew Bible at the Hartford Seminary's Center for Faith
in Practice. He can discuss movements and trends in Korean-American Christian
churches. Contact 860-509-9500, ukim@hartsem.edu.
• Charles
Ridley is a professor in the department of counseling and educational psychology
at the Indiana University, Bloomington school of education. He studies and teaches
the integration of psychology and theology and can discuss the psychological
attributes of successful church planters. Contact 812-856-8340 (office) or 812-856-8300
(department).
Background
• Faith
Communities Today (FACT), based at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research
at Hartford Seminary, in 2000 involved researchers and religious leaders in
a survey of 14,300 American congregations of all faiths and denominations. The
survey has been updated; new results are due soon. FACT can provide information
about megachurches (Protestant churches claiming 2,000 or more attending weekly
worship), which have been growing at the same time as the planting of small
churches has increased.
ARTICLES
AND PUBLICATIONS
• Hartford Institute for Religion Research posts articles
on church growth.
• Read
"Why
I coach church planters," an article by the Rev. Gary Scheer, at Stadia:
New Church Strategies' site.
• At
the Mississippi Baptists' site, read a July
8, 2005, editorial by Richard H. Harris, vice president of church planting
for the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board. Harris describes
the SBC's planting rationale and makes the case for lay-led church plants:
•
in sparsely populated rural areas and city centers where traditional churches
have closed;
• in "multi communities" - public housing, upscale gated
communities, senior housing and communities of manufactured houses, to name
a few - where traditional evangelism has been resisted but lay volunteers
from within may succeed.
• among immigrants and ethnic minorities; among Harris' staff, individual
members are assigned to planting among African-Americans, Hispanics, American
Indians and people from Africa, the Caribbean, China, Korea and Asian-Pacific
nations.
