Why Do We Plant Churches?
5 Reasons Why OMS Plants and Multiplies Churches
1) Fervor – As a new church is planted, energy and enthusiasm grow. The lost are pursued with passion. Because a church plant starts from scratch, its people are driven by vision and necessity to turn their attention outward in mission.
2) Faith - Want to experience the Spirit’s power in and among a group of people? Get them involved in a work they cannot possibly accomplish on their own. Relying on God in the planting a new church is a faith-stretching experience.
3) Freedom – New church plants are not shackled to the past. While those involved may agree to the vision, mission, and core values of a mother church, there’s a freedom to innovate. “We never did it that way before” is replaced by “Let’s try this.”
4) Finances – In a long-established church, money often stops flowing toward mission and stagnates around survival. In a new church plant, there’s opportunity to birth financial vibrancy and deeper fiscal dependence by moving funds away from self and towards others.
5) Fulfillment – Leaders often arise quicker in a new church plant than in older churches. Demand outweighs supply, so leaders must be developed and their gifting leveraged. Moving from watching ministry to helping lead it, they find fulfillment in their Spirit-anointed service.
Most importantly, planting new churches is about people who are spiritually dead coming to life. Relationships are restored. Community is discovered. The eternal destiny of people changes. New identity in Christ is embraced. Forgiveness happens. And people are liberated from the kingdom of darkness.
For all these reasons and for the praise of God’s glory, let’s give ourselves to multiplying churches!
*Convincing stats:
- It takes 50 members to reach one unchurched person for Christ per year when a church is 50 or more years old.
- Churches 10 years old take seven members to reach one new person.
- A new, one-year-old church plant takes just three members to reach one person per year (from a study by The Southern Baptist Convention, cited by Mark Alan Williams in The Top 10 Reasons To Plant New Churches Now, August 11, 2015).
- If a denomination or network of churches just wants to "break even," it has to plant at least at a three percent level annually — a denomination of 100 churches has to plant three to stay even considering attrition. A five percent increase is needed to grow. Ten percent is needed to thrive. (Ed Stetzer, 5 Reasons Established Churches Should Plant Churches, June 11, 2014).
- Tim Keller shares this insight: “The average new church gains most of its new members (60–80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshiping body, while churches over ten to fifteen years of age gain 80-90 percent of new members by transfer from other congregations. This means the average new congregation will bring six to eight times more new people into the life of the body of Christ than an older congregation of the same size.”
(see http://download.redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/Why_Plant_Churches-Keller)
By Bob Fetherlin
President, One Mission Society Global