Church planting is definitely ‘in’. It seems to be the ‘now thing’.  All you need to do is check out the websites of some of the most popular Christian denominations and movements and you will see just how ‘in’ church planting is. The websites of Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill, New Frontiers, Tim Chester’s Crowded House, my own denomination the Assemblies of God and even the Baptist Union of Great  Britain, to name a select few,all reveal one great and glorious truth- church planting is ‘in’.  It seems it is the way forward to rescue the dying movements and promises the success of global and local missions.

Let me say at the outset I’m not against church planting in fact I’m very for it. However with the new focus on church planting there comes a new expression of church. The UK AoG’s church planting department’s core values for church planting are the following.

  • We believe that there is more than one way to plant church.
  • We believe that there is more than one way to express church.
  • We believe that church should communicate the Gospel relevantly in order to connect with community.
  • We believe that churches should be planted by leaders of a pioneer spirit who are called by God, equipped for ministry and released for service.
  • We believe that churches planted should have adequate care and accountability.
  • We believe that in order to encourage church planting, there should be the freedom and the grace to fail.

 While it is claimed that ‘there is more than one way to plant a church’ and ‘more than one way to express church’ I cannot help but ask is there a wrong way to plant a church and is there a wrong way to express church? Is everything that claims to be an expression of church actually church? This in fact was one of the great questions of the reformation ‘what does the true church look like?’

 I am excited about some of the new church planting initiatives that are taking place in the body of Christ today. Some of them, I feel, are born out of a genuine desire for mission and a desire to express the simplicity of a biblical and authentic church. Others, I fear, are born out of desperation, the need to survive, the unbiblical philosophy of pragmatism (”if it works it must be good”) and in some cases pride and rebellion.

Here are some comments from John Piper’s book, Counted Righteous in Christ, on church planting. I think on the whole this is sound and godly wisdom.

“The older I get, the less impressed I am with flashy successes and enthusiasms that are not truth based. Everybody knows that with the right personality, the right music, the right location and the right schedule you can grow a church without anybody really knowing what doctrinal requirements sustain it, if any. Church planting specialists generally downplay biblical doctrine in the core values of what makes a church ’successful’. The long term effect of this ethos is a weakening of the church that is concealed as long as the crowds are large, the band is loud, the tragedies are few, and persecution is still at the level of preferences.

But more and more this doctrinally diluted brew of music, drama, life tips, and marketing seems out of touch with real life in this world- not to mention the next. It tastes like watered down gruel, not a nourishing meal. It simply isn’t serious enough. Its too playful and chatty and casual. Its joy doesn’t feel deep enough or heart broken or well rooted. The injustice and persecution and suffering and hellish realities in the world today are so many and so large and so close that I cannot help but think that, deep inside, people are longing for something weighty and massive and rooted and stable and eternal. So it seems to me that the trifling with silly little sketches and breezy welcome-to-the-den styles on Sunday morning are just out of touch with what matters in life.

Of course, it works. Sort of. Because, in the name of felt needs, it resonates with people’s impulse to run from what is most serious and weighty and what makes them most human and what might open the depths of God to their souls. The design is noble. Silliness is a stepping stone to substance. But it’s an odd path. And evidence is not ample that many are not willing to move beyond fun and simplicity. So the price of minimizing truth-based joy and maximizing atmosphere-based comfort is high. More and more, it seems to me, the end might be in view. I doubt that a religious ethos with such a feel of entertainment can really survive as Christian for too many decades. Crises reveal the cracks.”