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Dear Next Town Participant,
“What will you be doing five years from now?” I remember very well this question that Bro. T.L. Craft posed to the Jackson College of Ministries senior class. Bro. Craft went around the room and asked each of us to respond. My response was, “I will be planting a church.” It was seven years later that Karla and I began the church planting process in Ann Arbor, MI. I am so thankful that you have declared your intention to plant a church by filling out a Next Town card. Until you make this dream a reality, North American Missions will nurture this declaration by sending you monthly communications that offer practical tips, encouragement, and testimonies from those who have already started. Below is an article I wrote for the Strategic Growth Initiative newsletter. I hope you find it helpful. We are so excited about your journey! Thank you for letting us come along!
Three Creations of a Church Plant
Noted author, Steven Covey, declared that all things are created twice. The first creation is in the mind and the second creation is when that visualization becomes a physical reality. I believe new churches are created at least three times. Because of this progression, we cannot expect church plants to spring up overnight. It is also not reasonable to expect districts to add new works without significant care and cultivation. Instead of focusing on the end stage (i.e., an official church start), it may produce better results to give attention to each stage of the planting process.
The first creation of a church is in the mind of God from the foundation of the world. The second creation, the divine call, reaches an individual and God transmits His plan to the individual He has called. Remember, Jesus is the Church builder. The third creation, the plan, must become a reality. Each of these creations has serious implications and must be given careful attention.
God’s grand plan to save the world is the local church. It is His will for the Church to grow both in number of souls saved and in locations or congregations. God already paid the price for every soul in every city and He laid the foundation for a local church to be planted. No church planter is the originator of the idea to plant a church; the vision for every church plant comes from God Himself! God has already created the church He laid on your heart to plant in the next town! Every church planter should rejoice that God has already gone before them and prepared the way. Leaders must be clear in communicating that our evangelistic mission is to win souls, make disciples, and to plant churches.
The second time a church is created is in the heart and mind of the church planter. Much like a sermon is given by God to a preacher, God begins to give a plan and a vision to a church planter. This plan will, like a sermon, utilize the planter’s unique talents, giftings, and experiences. The church planter’s will, mind, and emotions become so interwoven with God’s will that the two become indistinguishable. Although God will use all your talents and giftings to accomplish His purpose, no true church can be founded on the personality of the church planter. The essential elements of every church planting plan must come from the leading of the Holy Ghost. Just as the teaching of homiletics is never meant to usurp the place of the anointing, neither is church planter training, such as North American Mission’s Launch training, meant to supplant the leading of the Spirit.
The third creation is the one we are most familiar with. This creation is the actualization of the new work. The plan becomes flesh, if you will. The application is approved by the District Board, paperwork is sent to WHQ, a church name is chosen, a pastor is named, and it is listed in the UPCI directory. This final creation is very exciting, and we can inadvertently focus on it more than on the other two. When this happens, there is a lag in growth because the third creation cannot take place without the first two.
What I am advocating is that we make sure we are intentionally focusing on each of the creations of a church plant. To focus on the first creation means that we must believe, teach, and preach the primacy of the local church in God’s plan to save the world. A city without a local church is a lost city. Every city is a city worth saving. The kingdom of God’s offense against Satan’s kingdom is the expansion of the local church. The way an individual interfaces with the universal and invisible church is through the visible local church. We must not succumb to the evangelical fad of emphasizing a “relationship with Jesus,” and de-emphasizing the importance of the gathered local church and its leadership. Jesus is coming back for the Church that He purchased with His own blood.
When we focus on the second creation of a local church, we will emphasize the calling by God of an individual to plant a church in a specific location. Often there is a lag between the call to plant a church and fulfillment of the call. Perhaps we could call this a germination or gestation period. It is hard to explain, but the call to plant a church may begin at a youth camp altar and take several years to develop. As leaders, it is our responsibility to nurture this calling through inspiration and training. I meet so many young men and women at Launch training that do not have a start date nor a location, but they are there preparing. North American Mission’s Next Town initiative aims to cultivate this germination or gestation period. We believe that if we can get individuals to acknowledge that God has laid a city on their hearts by filling out a Next Town commitment card, then we can begin to give them inspiration and training monthly.
Every salesman knows that today’s sale will not pay tomorrow’s bills. The sale made today was the result of a “pipeline” process and the current customer is a product of many hours of follow-up and cultivation. Every pastor knows that if the altar is to be filled with hungry seekers this Sunday, much work will have gone into making the contacts and building the relationships that bring them there. In conclusion, I’m calling on leaders to focus on cultivating a “pipeline” of church planters that will produce a consistent and sustainable pattern of growth in the number of new churches planted. We must raise up a mighty army of church planters in North America.
Scott Sistrunk | NAM General Director
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