Starting a new church can be one of the most exciting and rewarding accomplishments. One of the most exciting and rewarding things a church can do is start a new community of faith. It can also be one of the most difficult and daunting ministries the congregation will ever undertake. If your congregation is exploring the possibility of birthing a new congregation, we at New Church Ministry want to help.
Like any prospective parent, you may be wondering if you are ready to bring new life into the world. Is this the right time? Do you have adequate resources? How will your life be changed by this new life? How will you nurture your "baby?" We want to help your congregation struggle through these and other questions, to decide if it is God's will for your congregation to birth a new community of faith.
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~ Some Models for Churches Starting Churches
"Seed" the new congregation with a core group of people from your church who make a commitment to be part of the new church for a year. This core group develops the vision and calls a pastor, probably someone who will serve as a bi-vocational minister.
Provide financial support for someone to serve as a "missionary" for several years. This missionary planter will develop a core group, perhaps first as a Bible study group. As the group grows, the missionary will work with them to discern their mission as a congregation. They will launch their first worship service, add programs and outreach ministries, and continue growing as a congregation.
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Racially Ethnic and Multi-cultural Model:
If the neighborhood around your congregation has changed, and your congregation has not been able to minister to the new residents of different race and ethnicity, you may want to consider starting an ethnic or multi-cultural new church. You would provide financial support for a "missionary" who is a person of that race, or who has a calling to start a multi-cultural church. Having regular worship services and events with the new church would be enriching for your church and for the new church.
Shared facilities, sometimes called "nesting", refers to an established congregation that hosts and nurtures a new congregation in its building. Often times, the host congregation is an Anglo congregation that hosts a racially ethnic or immigrant congregation.
Multi-site ministry is one congregation meeting in more than one location. There is one central organization and one senior pastor, but multiple sites of ministry and multiple kinds of ministry occurring in these various sites. Multi-site ministry is also known as geographically extended parish, dual campus, center for expanded ministry, or satellite.
A satellite congregation is similar to the multi-site model with the exception that it is started with the expressed intention of becoming a new congregation with its own governance. While multi-site congregations are an extension of the same mission of the host congregation, satellite congregations define their own mission, vision, and values.
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Together in Mission Model:
Congregations in a geographical area join together to start a new congregation. This is a good model to pursue if your congregation's leaders do not feel your congregation has the resources to start another church on your own. Join together with other congregations in your area in this exciting mission endeavor.
~ Questions & Answers About Churches Starting Churches
Whose job is it to start new congregations? Isn't the task of starting new churches the responsibility of the Disciples regional and general church? Or is it the responsibility of established congregations? We would suggest it is both. Christ called all of us to:
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. --Matthew 28:19.
Clearly in recent years starting new churches has been a priority of the denomination. However, it is important to remember that until the 1960s, congregations took the lead in establishing new communities of faith. Most urban communities with several Disciples churches can identify a "mother" church that took the lead in planting new congregations. Churches in many cities formed associations whose primary purpose was starting new congregations. Churches in Kansas City, for example, called Frank and Mary Bowen as "city evangelists." This energetic couple started 18 of the region's 80 churches.
What does the Bible say that can help us understand the imperative of starting new communities of faith?
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. --John 3:16.
Because we know this scripture so well, we find it easy to overlook the radical message that it proclaims. God is passionately in love with the world. As church consultant Kennon Callahan notes, the verse does not say that God loves the church, but the world. God is in the world. When the church is in the world, God is in the church. When the church abandons the world, God is still in the world. The church must love the world as God loves the world. And that means the church must be in the world, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ. We cannot wait for the world to come to us.
This was certainly true of the early church. From the day of resurrection, the command has been, "Go and tell." (Matthew: 28:7,10,19-20). The New Testament church went everywhere and told everyone the good news of Jesus Christ. The church spread like wildfire across the Roman Empire because each new convert claimed the identity of "evangel," the bringer of good news. Despite the threat of persecution, Christians were so excited about their faith they couldn't wait to tell others. The command to go and tell is as urgent an imperative for the church today as it was for the first century church.
We understand and believe in the gospel imperative of evangelism. But we don't understand why evangelism should mean starting a new community of faith.
It may not! A lot depends on the particular situation of your church: the demographics of your community, the health and vitality of your congregation, and, most importantly, your congregation's understanding of its unique mission.
Where is the mission field today?
The twenty-first century church faces radically different challenges than it did only a generation or two ago. In the years following World War Two, churches were full to overflowing. The church and the dominant culture shared many of the same values. Stores were closed on Sunday. No one blinked an eye at Christian prayer in public school. The culture "pre-evangelized" people on behalf of the church. It was expected that people would go to church and they did! Churches opened their doors and the people flocked in.
It's a different world today. The dominant culture in North America today is indifferent to the church. Like the early church, churches today face a population that largely has no knowledge of the gospel. And because people come to the church by their own decision, and not because of the pressures of the culture, the church has to be intentional about reaching out and inviting persons, convincing them of the relevance and plausibility of the gospel.
The greatest mission field in the world is no longer Africa or Asia, where the church is healthy and vital and growing, but Europe and North America. A greater percentage of Ugandan and South Korean citizens are active Christians than are citizens of the United States and Canada. In the United States alone, more than 120 million persons ages 14 and older are essentially unchurched.
In addition, there are significant shifts in the population. The Hispanic population is growing more rapidly than any other group. it currently makes up approximately 12% of the United States population, and that percentage continues to increase. Immigration of Asians is even more dramatic. Twenty-five years ago 6 percent of all immigrants to this country came from Pacific Asia regions. Today nearly half of all immigrants are Asian.
We are in the midst of a great mission field. The church in the twenty-first century must be a missionary church. What do effective missionaries do? They go to where the people are. They speak the language of those persons. They use culturally appropriate means of communicating the gospel. Starting new communities of faith is among the most effective means for congregations to become true missionary churches.
Adapted from Catch the Vision! Congregations Starting Congregations, by Rene Jensen
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