Stuart Murray

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We can identify at least four different forms of church planting:

Sixteenth-century Anabaptist church planting was sectarian in the sense set out above. Although Anabaptists were deeply committed to evangelism and discipling new believers, they also planted new churches – not because there were too few churches in Europe, but because they were dissatisfied with the kinds of churches around them.

The contemporary western church planting movement appears, at least in its British expression, to be concerned primarily with replacement and saturation church planting. I will be interested to hear whether you perceive the same about church planting in the US and Canada. New churches are planted to replace those that are closing and to increase the density of churches per head of population. It is also unusually ecumenical and co-operative (when compared to most previous church planting initiatives). Through inter-denominational congresses, citywide strategic consultations, and local networking, attempts are made to work together. Though sectarian and competitive elements are present, these are not prominent. Discussion concentrates on the number and location of new churches needed, methods of accomplishing this goal, and practical concerns about finance, personnel, leadership, and accountability. Little is said about the kind of churches that will be planted beyond general phrases such as "living, growing, Christ-centred congregations."²

There are very positive features of this ecumenical spirit among church planters. If the goal is to see as many churches planted in as short a time as possible, co-operation is vital and discussion about the kinds of churches to be planted may hinder this. And there may be other benefits. We should not underestimate the impact of the church planting movement on the development of a grassroots ecumenicity that promises to achieve more practical progress towards the unity of the church than decades of denominational consultations.

But if church planting is not just about numbers, if it raises vital questions about the kinds of churches needed for the post-Christian and postmodern environment of the third millennium, if it invites creative thinking about the priorities of the church and the structures needed to facilitate these, then perhaps the lack of discussion about the kinds of churches being planted is too high a price a pay for this co-operation. While we will not want to encourage sectarian attitudes, we may be concerned to reflect more carefully than many church planters are on questions of ecclesiology.

Some church planters have recognised this and have encouraged more reflection on the kinds of churches being planted. Martin Robinson and Stuart Christine, in the most comprehensive British handbook on church planting currently available, write: "The challenge for church planters is to give birth to new forms of the church rather than replicate the same structures that have failed elsewhere."³ Stuart Christine, now a church planter in Brazil, continues: "Creative church planting that discovers new ways of being the Body of Christ in a changing world will help keep the sinews of our denominations supple and more able to respond sensitively and vigorously to the as yet unforeseen challenges of tomorrow’s world. . . . New churches, and the fresh theological insights that they generate, counter the tendency to ecclesiological ossification that turns structures into strictures."⁴

But the pressure to plant many churches quickly, and the concern not to risk co-operation by asking too many questions about the kinds of churches being planted, have hindered the church planting movement from generating many such theological insights. Most new churches are very similar to existing churches. There has been some experimentation, but often this relates to evangelistic methods and styles of worship rather than engaging with deeper questions about the nature and purpose of the church. Such experimentation is rarely energised by theological debate and discovery. North American Brethren church planter Dale Stoffer warns, "In the modern church planting and church growth movements there is too little attention to developing a theological rationale for new practices. Pragmatic considerations seem to be the litmus test for any new technique."⁵

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2. This phrase appears in the mission statement of the Challenge 2000 movement.

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