The Massive Need for Church Plants
Church planting is difficult, demands exorbitant amounts of resources, and is often unsuccessful. And yet we need to plant way more churches.
A report from the Pinetops Foundation says:
Nearly 1.1 million young people will leave the church every year for the next 30 years.
The current nominal Christian population will decline from 73% to 59%.
The number of unaffiliated or secular people will double from 17% to 30%.
The implications of this are staggering:
"Currently, nearly 4,000 churches are planted a year. At the same time, nearly 3,700 churches close their doors every year. That delta does not account for the expansive population growth predicted by census data. The current church in America needs to return to the church-planting rates that were present in our country until the 1930s. We need, by God’s grace, to see the church-planting rate double to 8,000 churches planted every year." (from the Northwest Church Planting Network)
Church planting already seemed so challenging, and now we learn that we will have to double our efforts just to keep the Christian population in America around its current level? How can the church ever meet such a call and opportunity?
Pray
The expansion of the church is a work of Christ by the power of his Holy Spirit. He has his own reasons for letting the spiritual climate of the U.S. become what it is. He is rapidly expanding the church in other parts of the world. There is no amount of human enterprise that could meet the spiritual crisis we are currently facing. Americans are ambitious and believe we can solve any problem. Not this one. No techniques, no compelling vision, no dynamic leaders could create the movement of church plants that we need in our generation.
Americans are ambitious and believe we can solve any problem. Not this one.
Nonetheless, we should not lose hope. How are you praying for revival in our nation? Are you asking the Lord of the harvest to raise up laborers?
Encourage and Support
After praying, we need to encourage church planters. People are willing to sacrifice greatly for the kingdom of Christ, but often they have much more fortitude when they know, "There are people behind me."
This encouragement could first of all look like a love for church plant core groups. I cannot even begin to express what a gift our launch team was for our church. By God's grace, though they only knew a little about church planting, they gave their prayers, time, love, energy, and gifts to start a new church.
Also, as the culture becomes more hostile to Christianity, church plants will take longer to organize. They will need the steady prayer and financial support of more established churches and individual Christians. This is especially true for places like the Pacific Northwest.
Is there someone you currently know who is planting? How could you reach out to them with support?
Train Young Planters
It is challenging for churches to always have new interns, church planting residents, and assistant pastors coming through their churches year after year. You have to get to know them, and each time it is a lot of work.
But the only way to plant churches is with pastors who go lead those churches. Those planters need to be developed and trained. They need a clear pathway from seminary to launch. Established churches have the responsibility of providing that pathway. Church bodies need to be devoted to this kind of work, too, willing to hear a young pastor's first sermons and having young, inexperienced ministers as their pastors. Know a church planter? Invite him over and encourage him as he is being trained.
Look at the Past
I remember being at a presbytery meeting several years ago in Walla Walla in an old Methodist building. It stuck me: How did all these church buildings get here? Go to any little town in Washington, and there you'll find a Methodist chruch. And a presbyterian one, and a catholic one, and a lutheran one. And likely some community churches. It is like that all over the country. These churches were largely the fruit of the Second Great Awakening.
What needs to happen in our day is the same work the Spirit has accomplished in the past.
What needs to happen in our day is the same work the Spirit has accomplished in the past. It might seem remarkable to us, but let us have the hope of the Psalmist: "I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High" (Ps. 77). God is able to provide far more abundantly than we could ever ask or think. That ability includes blessing our land with thriving new churches.
Rest in Jesus
Despite the great need for new churches in our day, what we don't need is the anxious toil of trying to fix this problem. Churches don't need to carry the burden of, "We need to fix this!" Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it (Ps. 127).
The bride of Christ, loved by her Lord, is the most attractive thing in the world. Those who don't know Christ will be drawn to the joyful, loving, non-anxious spirit of a disciple clearly loved by Jesus. As we rest in his love and trust in his grace and truth, the nations will come. We must obey God’s call to plant churches, but not out of anxiety or worry, but out of the joyful abundance of all that he has given us in Christ.
