Are We Really about Church Planting?

by Larry Sharp

We in the missions community think of ourselves as being in the church planting business. But somehow I often wonder if we are deceived. Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, inspired me to think about what we are good at and what we are deeply passionate about. What really is our raison d’etre?

We in the missions community think of ourselves as being in the church planting business. But somehow I often wonder if we are deceived. Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, inspired me to think about what we are good at and what we are deeply passionate about. What really is our raison d’etre?

When I think about the myriad church “forms” in the world, even among mainstream evangelical missions, I wonder if the focus on church planting has detracted from our real business. Are not the commands of Jesus to “make disciples,” “preach the word,” “follow me,” “feed my sheep,” “be my witnesses”? These are the mission activities which produce “men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). As John Piper reminds us, “the goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God…worship is the fuel and goal of missions.”

Of course we know the “body of Christ” is an important institution with the task of providing fellowship, leadership, teaching and ministry. Disciples assemble in churches as part of that act of obedience, but the church is not an end in itself. The goal is obedient, transformed worshippers.

It is interesting that Paul did not give strategic plans for church planting as we strategists would have done. Instead he focused on the qualities of elders and a few simple points about church order. Only one of twenty-three qualities of an elder in the epistles to Timothy and Titus is skill related. What impressed Paul about the believers in Thessalonica was their modeling of the gospel, not their strategic, end-in-view church planting model. The biblical metaphors for the church are defined in terms of lifestyle and purpose, not in terms of structure and strategy.

Jesus gave neither strategic road maps nor resources for fulfilling the Great Commission, he simply stated that his disciples are to “make disciples,” and that “I will be with you.” Christ made it clear that he will build his church (Matt. 16:18).

There does not seem to be a clear definition of church in the New Testament. The church is both form and function. It is phenomenon and creeds, institution and community, organization and organism, visible and invisible. Jesus simply wants followers.

The church looks different everywhere, and that is the way it should be because the church should naturally fit into any given culture. Missionaries who defines themselves as a traditional “church planter” have difficulty avoiding transplanting their culture’s idea of church. But if they simply teach the word, make disciples and encourage those disciples to “do church” in their own contextually appropriate way under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they will avoid the many pitfalls of church planting. If church planting becomes the work of national believers, missionaries don’t have to pass a baton; the baton is in national hands from the beginning.

I recently visited a “simple church” in a Dani village high in the mountains of eastern Papua, Indonesia. A Dani church leader told me, “thanks for sending Jack, who is the Lord Jesus to our village.” A generation ago, this warring culture of fear and death had never heard the name of Jesus. Jack translated the Bible, taught it faithfully and lived like the Lord Jesus. Today there is a contextualized Dani church worshipping the Creator of the universe.

I propose that modern missionaries should evangelize, equip new believers to be disciple makers and then stop. I do realize that the term “church planting” is not going away. But could we at least honorably live out the real meaning of “planting”?

The verb “plant” means to set in the ground to grow. On the farms of the Canadian prairies where I gained my first work experience, we planted grain for the wheat harvest. That meant to set in the ground to grow. We returned periodically to fertilize, cultivate and spray for weeds. Farmers do very little with their crops between seeding and harvest! Church “planting” should look roughly the same—setting the gospel in the ground and following up with periodic teaching, encouragement and prayer. By the power of the Holy Spirit (the rain and sun for the seedling church), a mature church develops. If this is what is meant by “church planting,” then I’m in favor of calling ourselves “church planters.”

A missionary that hangs around too long is equivalent to a wheat farmer who stays in the wheat field from May to September, digging around the tender plants, telling seeds how to adjust to the potassium in the soil, explaining the increasing sunlight until June 21 and then promising rain. Did not the apostles in Acts just “plant” rather than devise and implement an end-in-view church planting strategy? They built people, not churches.

We talk a lot about our church planting priorities. How about instead of church movements with long- and short-term strategies, we concentrate more on modeling the fruit of the Spirit in our adopted cultures? How about instead of being good at planting churches, we strive to be good at being disciples, making disciples and encouraging nationals to do the same? Maybe in another generation, people will consider us to be in the Jesus-planting ministry.

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Larry W. Sharp has served as vice president of CrossWorld (formerly UFM International) since 1993. He also was a missionary in Brazil for over twenty years. He and Vicki have been married for thirty-five years and have four adult children.

Copyright © 2005 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

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