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Let's
Stop Planting Sterile Churches!
by Carol Davis
Carol Davis is a woman who has been
involved in church planting since her childhood. What
she has learned from the mistakes and the successes
can help us all.
"I have a question I've been wanting to ask you for
four years," I said to Charles Brock, author of Practicing
Principles of Indigenous Church Planting, when I met
in the Philippines a few years ago. "You go into the
poor areas of Manila, you plant churches rapidly, they
always produce their own leadership, they are never
dependent on outside funds and they always reproduce.
"I know two other brothers who plant churches in the
same areas and it takes them six or seven years. They
are always dependent, they never reproduce and they
never can produce their own leadership. They say poverty
has destroyed the psyche of the people and they are
not leadership quality.
"I want to know why you can do it and they can't."
The question was a burning one, because I have been
involved in planting churches for as long as I can remember,
but not with the speed and rapid reproduction that I
saw in Brock's ministry.
Sick, dead or sterile
Growing up, I remember there were few evangelical churches
on the West coast of the United States when my family
moved there in the early 40s. Our little church of about
85 began to start churches in the Fresno area and later
in Sacramento.
My dad would take the family to the new church start
where we would stay for a year or so. When it was up
and going, we would go back to the mother church and
move out from there to the next church start. I returned
to that area as an adult nine years later, but I couldn't
find all those churches in our association of churches.
I wondered where they were.
Now I have a very simple mind. I knew that anything
that was alive was reproducing. It is a natural thing
for trees and plants to drop their seeds and spontaneously
spring up. We don't try to have babies, we try to not
have babies. In fact, if an organism does not reproduce,
we say it is sick, dead or sterile.
I finally concluded that we had planted sterile churches,
churches that were not church-starting churches. I studied
and surveyed four cities on the West coast and found
the same phenomenon. A mother church would go into an
area and in a period of 12 to 15 years would plant other
churches. But few of those new churches would ever plant
another one.
What we found is that people in America either consider
it optional to plant a church or they consider it a
two-step process. "We're going to grow and we're going
to train ourselves and get equipped and then we are
going to do the reproduction." But those in the two-step
process usually have been there for years, and I'm not
sure if they will ever get to a place where they are
going to reproduce.
That began to drive a lot of questions in my own heart
and mind, questions that began to be answered when I
talked with Charles Brock in Manila.
'The
person of peace'
He said there are two things that make rapid planting
and reproduction possible. First of all, he would find
the "person of peace." "I always wait for the element
of the miraculous in every work I start," he explained.
"One day I thought that a church needed to be started
in an area. On my way out there I saw this woman in
a second floor window. I didn't think a thing about
it. When I came back an hour later she was still in
the second floor window.
"Just as I got past her on my motor bike she called
out to me, 'Sir, are you a Bible man?' I said, 'Well,
I teach the Bible.' She asked, 'Would you teach me and
my family?'
"I had thought the other area was where I was supposed
to go, but it wasn't. It was here, because God had prepared
it."
Jesus told his disciples as they went out, "Whatever
house you enter first say 'Peace be to this house' and
if a man of peace (or person of peace) is there, your
peace will rest upon him…. stay in that house eating
and drinking whatever they give you….Do not keep moving
from house to house."
There are reasons for Jesus' instructions. If God has
sent us, and we are on his wavelength, there are people
he has ready. They're the people he has intended for
the core of the starting of that church.
This special person he has prepared he would call a
"person of peace." Most of the time pastors, small group
leaders and church planters stop before they find this
person. You therefore get a slow church start and it's
not necessarily very spontaneous.
The
authentic witness
There is no verse that describes what the person of
peace looks like. But what we can do is look at people
of peace, see where God did a work and then begin to
see what the common threads were. Lydia was one.
Cornelius was one. The demoniac was one. The woman
at the well was one. There were others.
Once you begin to look, you will see that they have
these three marks:
- They are receptive. Not every receptive person
is a person of peace. There will be many people
along the way who receive Christ before you
have found this person. But every person of
peace is receptive.
- They are a person of reputation. They are
known. They may have a good or a bad reputation.
But they are known. The woman at the well had
a bad reputation. Cornelius' reputation was
good.
- They have influence. They are a person who,
when they respond to Christ, will bring many
others along with them.
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When Jesus came to one town, a demoniac was crying
out in the caves. Jesus cast the demons out, put them
in pigs, the pigs went over a cliff and the whole town
wanted Jesus out.
Later we find Jesus coming back to this same region
where he had been thrown out, and now everyone wants
him. The only difference between those two scenes is
that now a cleansed demoniac is living among them, a
transformed life that demonstrates every day the power
of God to change a life.
It is a very powerful thing once you see it. It becomes
the authentic witness of who Christ is and what he can
do. So when you are going, you are looking for this
certain kind of person. When you find him, you will
have a neat church start. You will stay there and go
through his circle of influence.
Not
one, but 200
Paul and Silas referred to that circle of influence
when they told the Philippian jailor to "believe in
the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household."
Anthropologists tell us that in every culture in every
age you have four relationships: family, neighbors,
co-workers, friends. So when we find this person of
peace, he has family, neighbors, co-workers and friends
that are going to be impacted by his decision.
They tell us that most people in a healthy society
in the West have 25-30 that are really quite close.
So I can know when I find a person with influence I'm
probably immediately impacting at least 200 people.
I don't see one person anymore. I see 200.
What is exciting is that this is the precision way
to start a church. Precision to go in and find that
person of peace. Then you are connecting with what God
is already doing.
Let's
Stop Planting Sterile Churches...
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