Church Planting

I am currently reading a paper by Dr. Tim Keller, Senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC. He does a great job of defining from Scripture why the local church should be about multiplying itself. The full article is available from the link on the next page. I will try to highlight a few key points and include some quotes:

Two features are noted about the NT ministry that are key, particularly in Acts - Church multiplying (Acts 14) and Gospel centered (Acts 15). Dr. Keller later goes on to illustrate that two basic launching models were used to start churches in Acts, 1) using pioneer individuals or 2) using church planting churches. In both cases, there was a connection to a living, healthy church. He goes on to show how most people miss the church planting dimension in Acts since it takes place "normally", "naturally" and "constantly". It was not a sudden, traumatic or episodic happening. He shows that it was more normal than church building programs today.

But some would argue that this view of Acts is not correct:

There is a very common objection to reading the book of Acts that way. It goes like this: "That was then! Now, at least in N.America and Europe, we have churches all over the place. We don't need to start new churches, we should strengthen and fill the existing churches before we do that." Here are some answers:

New churches are by far the best way to reach 1) new generations, 2) new residents, and 3) new people groups. Studies show that newer churches attract new groups about 6-10 times better and faster than older churches do. It is because when a church is new, younger and newer people can get in to its leadership faster. It is because when a church is new, it has no tradition and can experiment. It is because when a church is new, its main goal each week is not to satisfy the desires of the long-time members (there are none!) but to reach new people. As a result new churches are enormously better at reaching new people in a city.

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