From the number of conferences conducted and the numbers that attend, one the "big thing to be involved in" in Sydney is church planting. It seems that everyone is talking about it, and most people expect someone to do it in their parish.
While this excitement about church planting is something that thrills me, I have a nagging concern that if we are not careful we will use the technology, sociology and pragmatics of church planting to replace evangelism. I have almost heard it said that if we just get the timing and methods right in church planting, we will grow the Kingdom.
My concern is that the Kingdom of God is never grown by structures, but by people who share and live the truth of the Lordship of Jesus Christ with others. Structures and novel methods may enable us to do more and do it better but they cannot replace evangelism - old fashioned God honouring, Christ glorifying proclamation of God's Word to our desperately needy world.
I wonder if, in our planning for church planting, whether we have included helping everyone to be a better evangelist?
A friend of mine gives his keen congregation members a little task to do. He gives these people a Gideon's Bible each and says to them that by the time they meet next, in two months time, they have the task of giving the Bible to someone.
I would have thought that task to be not very difficult. It is easy for a person to say "I have been given this Bible to give as a gift to a friend. Would you accept it?" Yet, people find it very difficult to give a Bible away in six weeks.
If we are going to be involved in church planting, we all need to be prepared to share our faith, or at least let others know that we are convinced that life is shaped by God's revelation in His Word. And the gift of a Bible isn't a bad way of doing that.
I am calling for a commitment to helping everyone involved in church planting to be committed to being more willing to gossip, mutter and declare the things of God to others. This needs to be part of our preparing for church planting.
