National Church Planting Day By the Numbers
Strategic Planning, Stories | Email This Post January 11th, 2009It’s National Church Planting Day in the Assemblies of God and to celebrate, I spoke at one of the 247 new AG churches that were started in 2008. New Life Assembly of God held its first public service in December of 2008. Paul and Judy Leasor are the lead planters. They never told me their age, but I know they are older than 50. They join Earl Creps and what appears to be a growing surge of other AARP members who are starting new churches that reach the hard to reach and disconnected. New Life is just right for a rural Missouri town of 4017. The attenders are genuinely friendly, the heart of the church is a mix of the best of traditional and the best of compassion. I’m hopeful that they will build a Gospel bridge that hundreds will cross over in the years to come.
In 2008 churches affiliated with the Assemblies of God opened 247 new churches. In the same period, we closed 232 which indicates a net gain of 15 churches and brings our total number of churches to 12,377. Experts like Lyle Schaller and others tell us that our net gain should be nearly 2% just to keep even with population growth. If that’s true, we should have had a net gain of 247!
However, measuring progress with net gains is a little tricky… Let’s start with the fact that an opening does not equal a closing in terms of kingdom impact. Here’s why: the average AG church plant averages 51 attendees when they celebrate their first anniversary. We don’t close churches of 50. We just don’t. I think it might be impossible. Imagine trying to tell 50 people that their church is not viable. They might need to sell a building to survive, but survive they will. I’ve seen churches of 3 or 5 or even 15 decide that it wasn’t worth it to keep trying, but never 50. So the negative kingdom impact of 2 churches (or more) closing is no where near the positive impact of one new open church! It’s takes at least 2 churches to close to cancel out the positive impact of one church opening. In other words, the “Kingdom impact” of the 232 churches closed in 2009 might be more like 116 compared to the 247 that were opened. So the new 2008 net gain adjusted for Kingdom impact might be 131. We can do better!
January 12th, 2009 at 8:54 am
So, when is National Church Revitalization Day? I am making it my goal to bug, bother, pester, and annoy anyone and everyone associated with the Assemblies of God until someone, anyone, takes church revitalization seriously in our fellowship.
Church planting is easy… anyone can do it. Church revitalization is a real challenge.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I totally agree that Church Revitalization is a viable need within our fellowship. In fact, I believe that the philosophies behind church planting and church revitalization are very similar: to create healthy, vibrant, soul winning churches that impact the community and the world. So in my estimation these two shouldn’t be on opposing sides, but rather the atmosphere should reflect the kingdom. The church should reach lost people, and if a church isn’t reaching lost people, why would we waste our limited resources helping it? (This is true of church plants or existing churches.)
I have had the opportunity to work in both paradigms; I have planted churches and I have worked to revitalize churches. I planted a church in a revitalization situation. To say that church planting is easy is naive. When I worked on church revitalization, I had a building, I had a salary, we didn’t have a lot of people, but the physical needs where met. When I planted a church, I lived in a garage, and fed my two children rice for dinner every night (not an exaggeration). So to say one is easier than the other is not true, the challenges may be different, but you can’t quantify or qualify one as being easier than the other. Besides, this is a fruitless debate.
My passion is simple. The church of Jesus Christ is the only hope of the world. So if we are going to change this nation and this world with the gospel of Jesus Christ we need healthy churches, and more of them. If every evangelical church in Houston (where I live) was filled to capacity for two services every Sunday, that would leave nearly two million people without a seat! So if every church in Houston was healthy and revitalized, this city would still need more churches. So where does that leave us? We need to plant more churches!
January 12th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
“Church planting is easy… anyone can do it.” –Art Good
Wow!! I have many friends who are church planters. I’ve never heard any of them say these words. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard the opposite. I’ve even experienced the opposite. I don’t usually respond to blogs. But, that statement really jumped off the page at me.
Certainly there is a need for revitalization. I’m not trying to minimize Art’s point. I was just shocked by his closing statement.
January 12th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Art, you clearly hit a nerve. Joel and Kim responded on the blog. A bunch of other people responded on my Facebook page.
First, I hope you were just being provocative when you said “Church planting is easy…anyone can do it.” The truth is that planting and revitalization are difficult in different ways. Church planters start with nothing but a dream. Revitalizers often inherit pre-existing circumstances along with a building and some congregants. Church planting is definitely not something anyone can do. Neither is revitalization.
Second. it is important to understand the relationship between strengthening the existing and starting the new. WE MUST DO BOTH/AND NOT EITHER/OR! The responsibility of the Church Multiplication Network is the help facilitate the starting of new churches. The Center for Leadership Development under the direction of Ron McManus has been tasked with developing resources to strengthen existing churches. We believe that revitalization and church planting have the same goal… healthy, reproducing churches.
Third, the natural activity of a healthy church is finding new people groups to start churches among. The images of harvest and planting that are woven throughout the teachings of Jesus point us toward the Kingdom norm of multiplication. Every healthy creation of God reproduces itself. Multiplication accounts for the rapid advancement of the church in the early centuries. Today the task is even more substantial than in the first century. 91 million people were added to the American population between 1990 and 2006, yet the number of people attending church remained virtually the same. We can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Paradoxically, the path to health for existing churches begins with a decision to be fruitful and multiply. First disciples and then new congregations.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
I also hope Art was just trying to get up ire of the church. I believe the church must receive a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which is how the AG was founded.
I can say from experience, having planted a church, that church planting is not easy and not anyone can do it. Church planting exacts a large price on a family. Not to mention the financial burden of not knowing if you will get a paycheck to feed your family.
I can also say from experience, currently revitalizing a church, that it also has it challenges. The challenge though in revitalizing is bringing in new blood/people and making it healthy to reproduce. From a biological standpoint, each being has definitive lifespan. In order for that species to survive it must reproduce. In the spiritual viewpoint, the church must reproduce to survive and leave a legacy.
Every church was planted. As Steve said, we must do both: plant new churches and revitalize existing.
Again I hope the statement “Church planting is easy… anyone can do it. Church revitalization is a real challenge” was used to create discussion. This statement could be taken as jab at church planting.
I pray that we remain open to a refreshing of the Holy Spirit and not get one-sided.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Art asked, “So, when is National Church Revitalization Day” The answer to that question is actually quite easy. Church revitalization day is every day after day one that a church is planted. The sad thing is a lot of our churches that have been around have stopped going forward. Steve said accurately that this is not a question of either/or. This is a matter of both/and. We have to continue to plant churches aggressively. It is our number one means of evangelization.
I think Art is really asking when or how we are going to put resources into church revitalization that we are putting into planting. What he is missing is the greatest tools for revitalization that I have ever seen. The things that the Church Multiplication Network have put into place are exactly the tools that are needed to revitalize a church. First the mindset needs to change. Often we want to revitalize the local church without changing it. That is never going to happen. If you want to really see a work in a city brought back to life, focus has to change to reaching people instead of maintaining what you have. The idea then begins to focus on re-planting rather than just giving an energy drink to an old vision.
I only wish that years ago when I went to re-birth a dying congregation, that I had some of the tools that the church planting movement have developed: assessments (to help you see your own strengths, weaknesses, and needs for team members), boot camps (to birth ideas and strategies), coaches (to mentor you through the process), and research that actually showed what kinds of things were working. Believe it or not, the best thing that church planting has done is not the finances. The team effort is its greatest strength. I did some of these things by basically forcing the team work of others and instead of trying to get the church back to a life it used to have, we went through a process to do something new and to re-plant the church.
Revitalization does mean bringing something back to something it used to have. It may just begin with waking up and to be willing to change everything. It may mean that the pastor and the church leadership must lay it all down on the line and start over. If you do, you will be grateful for what we have learned from church planting.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Like all living things Churches eventually “die” and for a specific reason. Recently someone pointed out to me that most (all?) of the Churches planted by the Apostle Paul are gone. Was he a failure? Were those plants failures?
To me, the greater issue is how to be wise and strategic in reaching lost people. If a local congregation has become unhealthy and diminished - why? Can the cause of ill-health be reversed? Are there extenuating and external circumstances that make revitalization unfeasible? Is there a better investment of limited personnel and resources?
We have all known great churches – there were great for a season; some longer than others and some for a really long time. Our challenge is the thinking that says – “Jesus will live forever and so must this church (corporation).”
The other side of this coin recognizes that some properties/congregations that have fallen into dysfunction and/or poor health are extraordinarily valuable and should be retained and revitalized at all costs. Some locations are in very costly neighborhoods that we would be hard pressed to afford at today’s prices. Or they may be strategically located – say next to a University.
What I see lacking is not a dialogue on “planting vs. revitalizing” but rather a discussion on where and how and by whom we maximize the use of all resources.
January 15th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
This has been a fascinating exchange and I believe that David Auterson’s concluding statement was point on. There should be no debate between church planting and church revitalization. Both are necessary, important, and valuable. As Steve pointed out, we must do both, and both have the same goal…producing healthy, reproductive churches. And as Duane noted, effective church revitalization actually requires a “re-planting” approach. Thus, both initiatives have a common denominator to find, develop, deploy, and support capable leaders in sufficient numbers to effectively reach the lost and multiply the church of Jesus Christ here on earth.
The pastoral leadership required for producing healthy and reproductive churches is first and foremost a “gifting” which makes identification and assessment key process requirements. I was involved in a “church revitalization” effort in our township nearly ten years ago. We began with a congregation of between 40-50 and two years later, the congregation was still between 40-50. In fact, that church remains the same size even today. Our pastor truly loved the Lord and received significant support from District Leadership. We prayed regularly that we would reach the lost in our community and grow in numbers. But it never happened and I often wondered why we were not more successful. Although not
wanting to over-simplify matters, I now believe that the primary reason was that our pastor’s gifting was for teaching and administration, rather than for the pastoral leadership needed for effective church growth.
Jesus states in Matthew 9:38 that “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few”. As several of the postings mentioned, the harvest is not only plentiful, it continues to grow! My daily devotion for yesterday (PK Men of Integrity) stated the following…”If the
laborers are few, has God incorrectly calculated how many pastors are necessary? I don’t think so.” Thus, it is clear that there are gifted leaders out there in our universities and churches with a calling on their lives. The challenge is to attract, identify, and encourage them to answer the calling and then provide the necessary training, coaching, and support to help them to be successful. Alternatively, we could ask Pastor Joel Hunter to report to the AG “Cloning Department” for
replication and deployment as needed. Just kidding of course, but it further illustrates the need to clearly understand the leadership talents, skills, abilities, traits, characteristics, etc. that help make Joel successful and then find more pastors/leaders with similar makeup.
In closing, I contend that church planting and church revitalization are both critically important for reaching the lost and growing the church, and both require strong, capable leaders. However, just as “the workers are few”, other resources (e.g. money, facilities, etc.) are
also limited. And that’s what is really at the heart of the discussion between church planting vs. revitalization, isn’t it? Although the Center for Leadership Development may have official responsibility for church revitalization, I believe there would be
tremendous synergistic benefit for leaders of both initiatives to work closely together to as Dave said…”maximize the use of all resources”.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:20 am
In the blood of Jesus thank your. Such blessing to us. Thank to the Lord your corporation in India. We have lot of work setuavetion to establish India unreached people groups of tribal slum areas. And part up other location areas in India. To promise of the Lord. Yes praises the Lord we will interest for partner with our vision work to Link PSALM 133; 1-3 with our ministries. And we will in frankly, Request you. We have missionaries and staff they are very critical trebles to reaching. Already submitted our Barden.
Please we are waiting your Recopies Reply. And suggestion to us please prayer our vision.
Vision:
1. Church Planting for the World (C.P.W).
2. Orphan Home & Children Care Ministry (O.H & C.C.M).
3. Mercy Charity Ministry (M.C.M).
E-mail: isaraelbanoth@yahoo.com
We are in Hyderabad in this Address
Thanking you.
Yours in Christ
Bro: B.Isarael,
Redeemer Gospel Ministries,
Plot No: 23, Kamalabai NagarColony,
Nagaram (Village & Post),
Keesara Mandal, R.R district,
Hyderabad-500 083,
India.