The "Why?" Series. Part 2 "Why Us?"

When thinking about church planting, two of the big questions that arise are: Why Church Plant, and then Where will you Church plant?  But for Tim and I, when we accepted that Church Planting was indeed an important, there was a question that we needed to think about, even before we got to the where.  And that question was: Are we suited to this kind of ministry?

The whole idea of Church planting came from a particular older brother in Christ, who approached Tim to say that he thought that Tim and I were very suited to Church Planting, and should seriously consider doing it.  Tim was surprised, but thought it was worth thinking hard about whether this was true.

A few weeks later we went to a session at College on this very topic, what kind of personality and gifting do you need to be a church planter?  Things mentioned where: If you have an ability to lead, if you were the kind of person who started ministries if your own bat, if you loved evangelism, if you had preaching and pastoring gifts, if you relished change and enjoyed excitement.  Sitting in that session, Tim and I joked that if you smooshed the two of us together into one person, you would probably get a good church planter, but as it was, perhaps we weren't the kind of people who were suited to this kind of ministry.

And so Tim emailed this friend back and said, "We have thought and prayed about this, and we really don't think we are the kind of people who could church plant".

About a month later that same friend contacted Tim again because he wanted to talk more about the church we were going to plant!

This person's continual enthusiasm for the idea, along with Tim's growing realisation for the need for church planting, convinced us that we needed to think and pray about it more.

And so we participated in the Geneva Push Church Planting assessment.  You can find out more details about that here.  This was an opportunity for us to undergo a rigorous assessment of our gifts, to have some referee's write about our ministry, and to be interviewed by experienced church planters.  And to our surprise they came out saying that they thought, with some conditions, that we were the kind of people who were gifted to plant a church

The biggest questions that were raised were to do with our administrative gifts and our lack of natural entrepenerial drive.  But our interviewers believed that what we lacked personally could be suplimented by having a "core team".  Some people plant by doing everything themselves, starting on their own, and growing from there.  We were not necessarily suited to that model, but would cope better with a group of people who from the start were on-board with our mission and could cover the areas where we lacked.  And so, we found, much to our surprise, that maybe we were the kind of people who could church plant!

And Church planting is so important we decided that if we could do it, then it was something we really wanted to do!
Of course, in all this we are aware that ultimately it is God who makes a ministry work, and all the gifts in the world can't grow a church.  Only God can. 

A great example of this happened last September.  Sitting in the foodcourt at Box Hill Centro- I said to Tim, "Where are we going to meet these non-Christians when we church plant?".  I was feeling scared and discouraged.  As we walked out of the foodcourt- we bumped into a lady I had first met in Sydney who didn't know God.  She had just moved to the Box Hill area.  After chatting for a little bit, we walked off.  Tim commented- "you should have got her phone number so you could catch up".  I agreed, feeling foolish for missing such a great oportunity.  Suddenly I saw that her two year old son had actually followed us out of the food court!  So I walked him back to her, and asked for her phone number.  We have since caught up and she wants to know more about Jesus!  It was such a great reminder that it is God who works in people's lives, that he can do ANYTHING, and that we are just trying to be faithful while along for the ride!

We prayed long and hard to God through this whole process, that he would direct our path and help us to do his will.  And while we feel that church planting is the right thing for us to do, we don't know what will happen. We are entrusting this process to God, and asking that he use us, as suited or unsuited as we might be, to bring people into his Kingdom and to bring him glory!
Amen!

The "Why?" series. Part 1 Why Church planting?

For the last three years Tim has been studying and preparing to work in full-time Christian Ministry.  And over that time (and before it) we have been discussing what kind of ministry we might do.  While we loved our time working with students, Tim's heart was really in pastoral ministry.  But the where, who with, and what format were still up in the air.  And through that time people were asking us about what we might do.

And now we have the answer: that we will (God willing) be church planting in 2012 in Box Hill, Victoria.

But there are still lots of questions.  And most of those questions are "why" questions.  So I thought I'd take the time over the next few posts to go through some of the why questions that we commonly get asked when we talk about our plans.  Why Church Planting?, Why Us?, and Why Box Hill?

So...
Why Church Planting?
There are all over Australia existing churches with buildings and resources who don't have pastors.  In Australia, most Suburbs have a church in them.  So why create more?

Because there are not enough. 
The truth is all the people of Australia need to hear about Jesus, and the churches that we have are not enough to reach them all.  And with the new people arriving in Melbourne each year we need many new churches to cover them anyway.

Our existing churches do not appeal or reach everyone.
New churches reach new people and they do it in new ways. Some people are naturally attracted to traditional churches.  Just a few days ago I had a man ring our office at the Baptist Church we currently attend, wanting to find out if he could come along so his daughter could get "Christian values".  That's a wonderful thing, that he was seeking something and thought a church could offer it.  But there are also people who naturally shy away from existing denominations or church buildings, because of bad experiences in the past, or because those churches are just very alien to their world.  So new churches can have a powerful role to reach out to those in the community who are not interested in joining a "mainstream" church.

Flexibility and the power to create a culture. 
All churches will have a culture, a set of priorities and principals that drive them.  The great strength of church planting is that with the clean slate, you can create a culture that puts evangelism at it's very heart.  You also have a bit more flexibility to try things and experiment.  It is possible to take this too far and be so interested in 'attracting' the lost that you forget what the Bible says about what is necessary and effective for a Christian Gathering and Evangelism. But provided you have Biblical principals guiding what you should do, church planting can open up the possibilities of what you "can" do.

Because church planting is an excellent avenue for Evangelism. 
New churches tend to do more evangelism.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's a survival thing- if you don't grow, you won't survive.  Perhaps it's a passion thing; often Christians who are drawn to church planting are those who are passionate about the lost.  But whatever the reason, in the history of the church in Australia, it has been the denominations that have church planted which have seen the most growth and conversions. For example in the 1970's the AOG denomination declared its intention to plant a church in every Australian town over 1000 people. They did not achieve this, but in the 20 years that followed they grew by 2,500% accross the nation and planted thousands of churches. Sadly it's the denominations who stop seeking growth and multiplication who find themselves in decline.

My story
Now, on a personal level, this question and these answers have been quite pertinent to me.  You see, when Tim first starting thinking about Church Planting, I was not on board.  I was keen to support Tim in whatever ministry was the best use of what God had given him, but was also keen that that ministry would not be church planting ;P  Church planting to me was a scary thing!  It didn't hold the security or even the respectability of an existing, denominational church.  I knew that it would be hard work, and I knew that it would involve suffering.  And so I prayed, I pray that God would either change Tim's mind or change my mind so that whatever we did, we could do it on the same page.

In March last year we were down in Melbourne for Tim's brother's engagement party.  And while we were down I was overcome with a love for Melbourne.  It was my home, and I loved it.  And I wanted the lost of Melbourne to know Jesus.  And I began to realise that church planting was a wonderful way to see that happen.

I had also been leading Bible studies on Philippians at that time, and had been reminded again of Paul and his willingness to joyfully suffer, to the point of being arrested, so that people could hear of Jesus.  And I was reminded again that I had a saviour who was worth suffering for.

And finally I realised that I would rather have no security and see people become Christian, than have lots of security, but no one reached for the kingdom.

And so now, despite still being afraid, I am really excited to be church planting.  And while I think it is not the only effective, important ministry, I think it is the best ministry for us.  But more of that in my next post.
Cheers,
Belinda