Partners in Planting
A key element in the planting of churches is the partnership between local churches and the church plant/planter. This means that many existing churches are needed to step up and plant new churches.
Why? 1) The United State is a great mission field. I remember as a young pastor (long time ago when young was last used for me), I heard a number of people say that "if we don't get busy evangelizing and discipling, it won't be long before we will need missionaries to come to the US." Those days are here! Every study that defines being a Christian as a personal believer committed to follow Jesus Christ, is telling us that the vast majority of people in the US are not Christ followers. To put it bluntly, the majority of the US population is lost. New churches are needed to reach the lost.
2) The US, for many reasons, has become a huge magnet for a tremendous number of immigrants. A little over a week ago, the Kentucky Baptist Convention hosted a prayer dinner for people who were working with ethnic people groups in Louisville. 32 individuals came representing work with 19 different ethnic goups. And this was less than 1/3 of the known ethnic groups that are represented in Louisville. The ethnic groups desperately need new churches.
3) The US population is gravitating to urban areas. 50% of Americans now live in urban cities and counties. In most of these urban settings the ratio of population to church has widened tremendously. The urban areas need new churches.
4) Areas that used to be strongholds for evangelical Bible-believing churches have experienced huge culture shifts. Even in places where Southern Baptists have been traditionally strong the population-to-church ratio has risen markedly. New churches are needed to handle this demographic shift.
5) The greying of the church is another reason for planting new churches. Most of our traditional churches are made up of people 40+ years or older. We have left several generations behind. New churches are needed that can connect with the younger generations that are only found in small precentages in our existing churches. To compound the problem, many of our existing churches, who are generally not happy with the dwindling number of young adults in their congregations, either will not make changes to attract these generations or are unable to do so. The answer, new churches that will target the young adults that are far from God.
I could go on...but it should be clear that new churches are needed. And it is the responsibility of existing churches to plant, partner and sponsor these new churches.
What about your church? Has it planted, sponsored or partnered with a new church in the last twenty years? For the majority of our churches the answer is "no". In fact, most churches have not even thought about planting a new church.
Maybe now is the time to begin discussions on planting a new church.
This Saturday, August 16, at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, a Super Saturday Event will be conducted. Many conferences will be held during the day. One of the conferences that will be offered is entitled Partners in Planting. This will be a conference that will look at the why's of church planting and the different ways a local church can sponsor or partner with a church plant. If you would like to attend Super Saturday in Lexington or in any of the other locations on August 23, September 6 and 13, you can call 502 4 89-3572 or email supersaturday@kybaptist.org and register or find out a list of conference offerings.
1 Comments posted by: Larry Baker on August 13th, 2008
