Discipleship and Church Planting

Discipleship and Church Planting
By Robert J. Vajko, TEAM
What a shocker for one who believes in church planting—the Bible never says, “Go therefore and plant churches in all the nations.” If this is true, then why teach and preach church planting and why have a “Help for Planting and Multiplying Churches” bulletin? Nevertheless, there is no doubt in my mind that the Bible teaches the importance of planting churches since
1) This is the biblical way as seen in the book of Acts
2) Half of the New Testament letters were written to planted churches
3) The Apostle Paul spent his life planting new churches
4) When the Holy Spirit is at work in a church, leaders are sent out to plant new churches as in Acts 13:1-3.

We could continue this list and add more reasons as I have done in my study, “The Biblical, Theological and Missiological Bases for Planting New Churches.” (available by e-mail on request).

But this still leaves us with the question of the relationship between discipleship and church planting. Do they fit together? How do they fit together? Why is it important that they fit together?

Let’s start with:

I. The Importance of Discipleship.
A. It is the great emphasis of the four Gospels where Jesus is the great disciple maker.
B. It is the great emphasis of the book of Acts where the result of evangelism is always the making of disciples.

II. The Failure of not Linking Discipleship to Church Planting.
A. One ends up with loose disciples floating around or, worse yet, professions of faith that do not result in the four qualities of Acts 2:42.
B. It is not the true biblical flow as seen in the Acts and Epistles.
C. In the TEAM France ministry area the work started with an emphasis on evangelism and discipleship but the local church vision was not clear. The result was shocking and had as a result work that had no fruit that continued with disciples developing in local churches.
D. It was in the light of this problem that Vernon Mortenson, General Director at that time, explains his counsel to the missionaries, “To them I stressed that missionary work should have as its prime focus the creation of churches in the New Testament patter. Art Johnston [acting field leader at that time] would later say that these conversations had greatly influenced the thinking of both Rod and himself. In these first years, however, the work did not have church planting as a clear overall goal.” (Mortenson 1994, 739)


III. The Failure of not Linking Church Planting to Discipleship.
A. One ends up with weak churches.
B. The result is pew-sitting instead of powerful change.
C. There is little transformation as disciple-making is limited to a few and the church as a whole does not grow in quality.
D. As Bob Roberts states in referring to emphasizing churches without true disciples being transformed is that we arrive at “the point where the primary things we ask of people is their money, attendance, and a few hours every quarter to help with a Sunday school project….We don’t make a difference because the gospel has not made us different as
God intended intended it to do. We are just more religious. We are more worried that our church is not growing than the fact that we are not growing in our walk with God.” (Roberts 2006, 14).


IV. The Beauty and Balance of Putting the Two Together.

A. A church becomes more vibrant.
B. The biblical church is a “disciple making church” which is the New Testament vision.
C. A church grows by “following” rather than “attracting by programs.”
D. There is a commitment not to a discipleship program but to discipleship as such as seen in such activities as small groups, life-transformation groups (see Cole 1999), and one-on-one discipleship.
E. As Diet Schindler, a church planter in Germany states, “Life change occurs where there is nearness, openness and accountability.” (Schindler 2008, 337)
F. Neil Cole, a proponent of more organic disciple-making churches, explains, “I have come to understand church as this: the presence of Jesus among His people called out as a spiritual family to pursue His mission on this planet.” (Cole 2008). In this Cole has put the DNA of Divine presence, Nurture of believers, and Apostolic mission.

When people are married we state, “Let not man put asunder what God has joined together.” Let us not do that in church planting but let us wed in beauty true discipleship and planting churches composed of these kind of disciples.

Questions for church planters:
• To what degree are the believers in your church plant growing in discipleship including the word, prayer, witnessing, and obedience out of love for Christ?
• Do those whom you are helping in discipleship really have a life commitment to others in the local church body?
• How can you keep this balance?

Reference List
Cole, Neil. 1999. Cultivating a Life for God. Carol Stream, IL: ChurchSmart Resources.

________. 2008. “A Dangerous Question and Organic Church.” www.CMAResources.org
(accessed Oct 13, 2008)

Hull, Bill. 1990. The Disciple Making Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Revell.

Mortenson, Vernon. 1994. God Made it Grow. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Press.

Roberts, Bob. 2006. Transformation: How Glocal Churches Transform Lives and the World.Grand Rapids: MI: Zondervan.

Schindler, Dietrich. 2008. “Good-to-Great Church Planting: The Road Less Traveled. Evangelical Missions Quarterly No. 44, 3 (July): 330-337.

Vajko, Robert. 2003. “The Biblical, Theological, and Missiological Bases for
Planting New Churches.” In Proclaiming Truth, Pastoring Hearts. Adelaide, S. Australia: ACM Press. Edited by R. Todd Stanton & Leslie J. Crawford.