Why we Plant: Churches Planting Churches

By Father Lee Nelson, SSC

"As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily." Acts 16:4-5

One of the realizations the reader of the Acts of the Apostles will make is that while the ancient Church was passionate about evangelism, it was every bit as passionate, if not more so, about establishing churches in every city of the world. In a sense, you could say that evangelism was a bridge to the establishment of a local church with local leadership granted authority by the apostles. The above verse speaks of the time just before Paul is called into Macedonia, where he would preach the Gospel in Europe for the first time. The churches of Asia are experiencing explosive growth following the Council of Jerusalem, and for good reason. The Council had made clear her expectations of Gentiles coming to the Faith, and they were not so high as some might have expected. Yet, Luke does not recount that the number of disciples grew, but that the number of churches grew as they received the decisions of the Council. So what we see is the dynamic and exponential growth of churches under the authority of the Apostles and subsequently the proclamation of the Gospel through those churches. This results in the dynamic and exponential growth of the numbers of disciples, but that growth is contingent on the numbers of churches.

Today, research shows us the same phenomenon. In towns with more churches, more people go to church, even when you correct for every other variable. A rising tide truly does lift all ships. We have long been told that personal and individual evangelism is essential to church growth, but does this really fit the bill of the New Testament? The Lord Jesus made fishermen fishers of men. Had they seen a rod and reel, they would not have understood it. These men fished with nets. They were all-or-nothing sorts and as they were taught to become fishers of men, The Lord taught them to rely upon the building up of the ecclesial community to make disciples. You may remember the disciples coming to shore after a long, fruitless night. Jesus commands Peter to put down his nets, and a great catch - 153 fish! - are hauled in. You see, the Church is the great net in which are caught up all the nations of the world. (John 21:11) Personal evangelism, though important, can never be a replacement for the local church.

In the United States, we live in the largest mission field in the Western Hemisphere. There are roughly 120 million unreached Americans. A lack of church planting, as much as cultural forces, has brought us to this point. Population has expanded, and the number of churches has remained relatively stable. It is our conviction at Christ Church that The Lord is calling us to be part of a movement of churches planting churches. It is our belief that as long as there are unchurched people in our city, there is a need for more churches, not less. We also know from the research that new churches make more disciples than older ones. Churches under three years old make three times the disciples as churches fifteen years old or older.

So that is the goal, and we are already going about that work. When I came to Christ Church, the bishop also gave me responsibility for our student ministry at Texas A&M. They had about 25 students and one family. We now have ten families ready to go in that mission. A permanent full-time planter will be starting up in November and December.

Here in Waco, we are beginning to pull together a group of people who will explore a call to plant another parish church in the area. Who knows what it will be like. Would you pray that the Lord will put clarity and passion in that group of people?

The vision at Christ Church is to become a church that plants other churches. We will do that by training up our members - especially students - as planters and evangelists. As these students disperse, they will do so with the skills and tools of church planting in their tool chests. They will know how to catechize. They will know how to find appropriate space, start small, and build patterns of sustainable growth. In other words, they will be fishers of men, mature Christians able to build up the body through replication. 


From the weekly parish email newsletter of Christ Church, Waco.