Simon Cox Blog: More Church Planting—Not Less

Friday, 10 June 2016

More Church Planting—Not Less—Is Needed

Here are 5 realities for more effective church planting efforts.

Among the best ways for us to reach people with the gospel is personal evangelism and church planting. Even with all the changes in culture this remains our best option for reaching unbelievers.

Church planting efforts need focus. A scattershot approach will not be the most effective.

Here are five things we are going to need to increase church planting capacity.

1. We’re going to need more engagement from more churches.

Let’s face it, most churches are cul-de-sacs on the Great Commission highway. But if we are going to increase church planting efforts, we need more churches hopping onto the highway.

In order to merely break even in membership growth, we need a church plant growth rate of about a 3 percent per year. To put it into perspective, at 100 churches, there needs to be three new churches per year. While 3 percent is the minimum, I encouraged the SoCal Network to aim for a 10 percent church planting rate, which is the best denominational statistic we have out there for a movement.

It’s doable right now.

I know that it is easier said than done, but when the Vineyard, Calvary Chapel, and Hope Chapel movements were launched out of Southern California a few decades ago, they often planted at a 50 percent rate.

So in our lifetime we’ve actually seen a rate far beyond 10 percent!

But the key is having more churches engaging in church planting.

2. We’re going to need more planters.

If we are going to have more churches engaging in church planting—especially to keep up with the population increase—we will need more planters. It’s that simple.

My prayer is that more men and women will say, “Yes” to Jesus, or “Here am I Lord, send me,” and be a part of church planting ...