Church planting accelerates and advances the kingdom in exponential ways.
In the last few years, Southern Baptists have made a significant turnaround in their church planting efforts. It’s something I’m excited about and care about, and as such I’ve been reflecting on what has happened and how we need to move forward.
The Landscape 30 Years Ago
When I started my first church in 1988, I was 20 years old and church planting made a dumpster fire look like a walk in Central Park on a cool spring day. I had an undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry, but God called us to plant a church. Ironically, I got turned down by the SBC Home Mission Board to be a church planter. (Later, I was one of the people in charge of turning people down for the North American Mission Board.)
Despite the rejection, my wife Donna and I moved to the inner city of Buffalo, New York, because we knew we had a calling from God. I blew insulation as a contractor and Donna worked as a school teacher in a Christian school. While serving bivocationally, we started our first church in Buffalo.
It was a lonely and challenging time, but also fruitful.
However, church planting back then was a mess—at least in my denomination.
It was less like a mission field and more like a buzzsaw, and I saw time and time again friends get deeply cut trying to start new gospel works in the city. For example, eight of us went to plant in Buffalo, which at the time was considered a ‘focus city’ for the SBC. Out of those eight planters, five are out of the ministry, four are out of their marriages and faith, and there is only one church remaining of those that were planted in that class.
That’s a mess.
At that juncture, Southern Baptists were in the midst of a major struggle that would result in what we call the ...
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