Do churches have a mission or does the mission of God have churches? The short answer would be yes, but the subject deserves more explanation. Craig Van Gelder wrote, “Rather than the church having a mission, it is God who has a mission in the world, and it is God who calls and sends the church to participate in the mission. This introduces the perspective that the church is missionary by nature” (Van Gelder, The Missional Church in Context, p. 10)

Leith Anderson wrote a chapter in the book Created and Led by the Spirit: Planting Missional Congregations pp. 73-85). In it he suggested consideration of specific proposals for starting new churches.

1. New Churches Tend to Be Evangelistic and Entrepreneurial

They reach what he refers to as those who are “unbelieving, unchurched, or underchurched.”

2. Established Churches Are Reluctant to Change

If traditions and practices are not already missional, they are less likely to become missional.

3. New Churches Influence Established Churches

When another church changes to reach out, serve God, bless others, and grow internally, the church that wouldn’t change has permission to try initiatives that would have been otherwise forbidden by tradition.

4. New Churches are Needed

If churches are going to minister for God and for the world, we need many more churches.

5. The Spirit is Starting New Churches

It is not a question of whether to start more new churches. The Holy Spirit is already doing it.

6. The Future Belongs to Those Who Start New Churches

The ecclesiastical future belongs to denominations that birth new churches, or, more precisely, the future belongs to new churches.

Effective church planting requires more than simply reproducing existing congregations in new locations. Church plants must be intentionally shaped for the people and communities they are called to reach. This requires careful attention to leadership, mission, context, relationships, resources, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

There is no single formula for planting a healthy church. Methods and models may vary, but the mission remains constant. New churches should be biblically grounded, spiritually dependent, culturally aware, and intentionally missional.

The success of a church plant, therefore, should not be measured merely by whether a congregation is launched, but by whether a sustainable, reproducing, Christ-centered community is established. Church planting is ultimately not about creating another institution. It is about participating in God’s mission by establishing churches that faithfully reach people, make disciples, and reproduce the mission in others.

Church Planting is healthy for established churches for a number of reasons. Clearly, it is biblical, and the reality of multiplication is life-giving for a local church. Yet the value of church planting for established churches goes beyond the obvious.

Church plants operate from the perspective of seeing their community with fresh eyes. They strategically see the needs and opportunities in their communities and approach the work as missionaries. Sometimes established churches take certain aspects of their communities for granted and fail to see the opportunities and needs around them.

Church plants must prioritize evangelism and the making of disciples for long-term health. Established churches can easily get stuck in a maintenance mode and not intentionally engage their community with the Gospel as effectively as they should. A healthy church plant can have a positive influence on an existing church.

Church plants can build a sending culture from the outset. It is easier to establish this as a foundational principle of a new church than it is to infuse it into a long-established church. Established churches can be drawn toward the status quo and fear “losing” some of their best people in a sending culture.

Church plants must intentionally multiply and empower leaders. Other than a core group to start with or a launch team, there are no leaders. They are still in the harvest. Established churches can easily rely on those who have carried the weight of the ministry for a long time rather than working to raise up new people.

Of course, there is much wisdom that church plants can and should learn from established churches as well. Healthy relationships between the two are important to the advancement of God’s kingdom. Every established church was once a church plant, and every church plant will ideally be an established church, surviving, thriving, and multiplying into the future.

The churches that remain healthy are those that never lose their missionary identity. We don’t all need to become church plants, but every church should think like one—praying boldly, reaching intentionally, making disciples faithfully, and multiplying for the glory of God.

The religion researcher, Ryan Burge posted this table on X recently. He wrote, “A lot of folks assume that many Protestant denominations will just slowly decline over the next few decades. That’s not going to happen. The Boomers are propping most of them up right now. When they age out, it’s gonna get back. Really fast. No one is ready.”

Burge makes some basic assumptions here. Namely, that there will be no replacement of this age group, and the general trend will continue. He may be right, and time will tell. The Baby Boomer Generation is generally considered to be those born between 1946-1964. Meaning they are currently between 62 and 80 years old. The average life expectancy in the United States is currently 79 years old.

Older generations historically had higher participation rates in church, while non-religious identity is highest among Millennials and Gen Z. What does all of this have to do with church planting? Church planting will continue to be important in the mission of God for reaching communities for Christ. As it relates to Southern Baptists, 45% of our adults are Baby Boomers. When one considers average life expectancy, we could be facing a cliff within 15-20 years.

What are we doing to reach younger generations? Are we placing the emphases of our ministries where they need to be? Are we praying for the power of God to work through us, not just to collect people who are already churched, but who need Christ? These questions and more will be of paramount importance moving forward.

The survival of the church does not depend on it because we know Jesus made an irrevocable promise and spoke with certainty about His church. However, the health of the church and its survival in local contexts are certainly in view. Let’s pray and make the commitment to do our part to reach the generations to come for Christ!

I think everyone who works in church planting senses the tension between planning and the Holy Spirit. Often, we make plans for high-priority areas of need for church plants. This may include mapping strategies, identifying potential planters and partners and more. Then, unexpectedly, God raises up a planter who has a strong call to a specific place. Sometimes the specific place that the planter feels called to does not seem very strategic at all, but God is clearly at work. It is often proven when the planter moves to an unlikely place, and the hand of God is on the work from the beginning.

In specific church plants, we plan diligently for timelines, leadership teams, core values, ministry plans, and more. Then God closes doors, and He opens doors of opportunity. He directs, and redirects. We recognize the stress between planning too much and limiting God, and planning too little and drifting aimlessly.

How might we understand the connection between the work of the Holy Spirit and planning in church planting? Worship must always precede work. Prayer must always precede plans. Scripture must always precede strategy.

May the Holy Spirit of God be our wisdom, our guide, and our power in church planting, for the glory of God and for the sake of the lost!

Churches planting churches is a clear missiological principle in the New Testament. From the work of the apostles early on to the work of church planters today, intentional church planting has been a kingdom essential. This is especially important considering the reality of churches closing each year. Lifeway Research cited data from the SBC Annual Church Profile in 2023, that between 2022 and 2023, 900 churches closed their doors. This appears to be an annual reality, considering recent trends.

In West Virginia specifically, our convention reported 224 churches and church type missions in 2019. Current data shows 207 churches and church type missions. In this same timeframe, 26 churches have been planted with a 96% survival rate. Approximately 12% of current churches in our state convention have been planted since 2019.

Clearly, there is a need to do more in church planting to reflect overall net growth. There is also a need to strengthen the health of existing churches, and focus on revitalization as well. We need a movement of God to reach the lost, disciple the saved, and advance the kingdom of God!

We see what we look for. From a spiritual perspective, if we care about reaching the lost and advancing the kingdom of God, we will look for ways to do that. Many people look around our state and think, “we have plenty of churches.” From a physical plant standpoint, there is an element of truth to this. Yet in reality, if every church (of all kinds) in West Virginia had 500 people in attendance every single week, we still could not accomodate everyone in our state. In the family of churches we serve, the average weekly attendance is 60 people. More importantly, there are so many people who are far from God and need to be reached with the good news. Any way you look at it, we have a long way to go.

We need to have a vision for planting. Understanding that it is biblical, it enagages new people, is effective for evangelism and discipleship, and is innovative in that it is not putting new wine in old wineskins.

We see what we look for so let’s look for ways to multiply the work and be effective in the mission of God.

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