God and the Theology of Church Planting

God and the Theology of Church Planting

The church planter needs to have two major strands in his ministry. They are the two strands of theology and missiology. A missiological vision without a vision of God is a warped vision. So I want to briefly share how we are to keep God as the center of our vision in church planting.

We need to ask why we want to plant new churches. Church planting can have various motivations such as the desire to start new churches in order to win more people to Christ –which tends to happen in newly-planted churches as over against older churches. Another motivation can be the desire for innovation, especially when we see older and more traditional churches stuck in a rut of tradition which can hinder creativity. Other motivations are an understanding that our denomination or fellowship of churches will plateau and not grow if we do not plant new churches.

But although these motivations are not necessarily wrong they lack the main motivation and that is to plant churches in obedience to Christ and for the glory of God. Let’s look together at these two motivations.

First, our motivation must be obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ who has said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20 ESV). We see the results of this in the book of Acts where, although not always cognizant of our Lord’s command, believers went out empowered by the Holy Spirit and disciples made disciples. The result was the need for new churches to be established everywhere people came to Christ. This evangelism was both spontaneous as believers were scattered out from Jerusalem and structured as Paul and his church planting colleagues won disciples and planted churches with these new believers in strategic cities of the Roman Empire.

Second, our motivation must be the glory of God. How much more meaningful church-planting becomes as we see new bodies of new believers gathered in new assemblies to live for and worship the Lord God of hosts. As my wife and I look back at church-planting that we have been privileged to participate in, the greatest joy is seeing lost people changed into worshippers in various parts of the world. Jesus said this when he said, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship ahim. (John 4:23 ESV)

Is there a greater motivation theologically than to see churches filled with worshippers who previously worshipped something other than God? What a mission that we have to plant churches filled with lost people who are now people who love God!

And then we see God at work developing these believers in relationship to one another. But it is God who always needs to get the glory. These words need to be engraved on the heart of every church planter: “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. (1 Cor. 3:5-7 ESV)

If a church is planted, grows, and multiplies in the true biblical sense, it must be because God is giving the growth. Yes, we do something but unless accompanied by the working of God, it will come to nothing. Is this one of the reasons that church plants do not survive—that we are trying to do it in our own strength without the power of God at work. God forbid!

Two corollaries for church planters are that the power comes from God and so the praise should go to God when a church is planted, grows, and multiplies.