FEATURESTORY 09
C
hurch Planting is one part of the two-pronged integrated strategy of MMS. So, what is Church Planting? It is a process that results in a new indigenous church being planted. MMS was inspired and guided by David Garrison’s booklet, Church Planting Movements, 1999. And it was used to facilitate church-planting movements as part of MMS’s missions growth strategy. A Church Planting Movement (CPM) is a rapid and exponential increase of indigenous churches planting churches within a given people group or population segment. It is more than “evangelism that results in churches” and certainly more than a revival of pre-existing churches. It occurs when a church will sponsor formation of multiple spinoff churches that will themselves very quickly reproduce new churches, generally with common teachings and doctrine. At the beginning of the second millennium, there was a lot of discussion at various levels of MMS leadership on how the key principles of church-planting movements could be adapted and contextualised to MMS fields. Whilst MMS has tried to practise this strategy, we have not always been successful but with God’s help, we persevere on. The key highlights of Church Planting Movements worldwide as encapsulated by David Garrison are: A. Ten Universal Elements
1. Prayer 2. Abundant gospel sowing 3. Intentional church planting 4. Scriptural authority 5. Local leadership 6. Lay leadership 7. Cell or house churches 8. Churches planting churches 9. Rapid reproduction 10. Healthy churches
B. Ten Common Factors/Characteristics
1. Worship is a language of the heart 2. Evangelism has communal implications 3. New converts are rapidly incorporated into the life and ministry of the church 4. Passion and fearlessness demonstrated 5. A price is paid to become a Christian 6. Society is perceived to have a leadership crisis or spiritual vacuum 7. Church leadership grows via on-the-job training 8. Leadership authority is decentralized 9. Outsiders keep a low profile 10. Missionaries suffer C. Obstacles to CPMs
Measures that tend to obstruct, slow or otherwise hinder CPMs: 1. Imposing extra-biblical requirements for being a church 2. Loss of a valued cultural identity 3. Overcoming bad examples of Christianity 4. Non-reproducible church models 5. Subsidies creating dependency 6. Extra-biblical leadership requirements 7. Linear, sequential thought and practice 8. Planting “frog” rather than “lizard” churches, the former being a church that does not reproduce whereas the latter reproduces regularly. 9. Prescriptive strategies
