Stuart Murray

But the Anabaptist church planting tradition might also offer helpful perspectives on church planting strategies, as well as on the kinds of churches being planted. There is growing evidence in Britain that church planting is slowing down as churches with the resources and energy to plant a "daughter church" discover that this is a major investment and not one to be repeated very often. Again, I am interested to learn if this is also true in North America. There is certainly evidence that few new churches are being planted where the church is weak, especially in inner city areas. The Church of England newspaper a few years ago, for example, reported that, although Anglican churches are being planted at a faster rate than any time this century, most are in the "wrong places."⁶

Are there ways of planting churches that will make an impact in areas with the greatest social needs and lowest church membership? Are there ways to start new congregations that will enable churches to sustain a church planting strategy over a long period without the drain on their personnel and finances that "mother-daughter" church planting involves?

No one method will suit every situation, but an alternative way of planting a new church is to use a small, self-funding team. Quite small churches can initiate such church planting ventures, larger churches can send out several teams, or teams can be built with members from several churches. The team may operate financially on a "faith" basis, praying for the resources they need, or some members of the team can be released and supported financially for pioneer evangelism and pastoral ministry through shared finances with team members who are in paid employment. When I spoke at a conference in Goshen last year I mentioned Urban Expression, a church planting initiative in inner London that operates in this way and that has taken on board various Anabaptist values.

This is not a new method. It has an honourable history that includes the apostolic teams of the New Testament, the Celtic missionary monks who re-evangelised Britain after the collapse of the Roman Empire, and the pioneering work of many missionary organisations. It is also a method that I believe is deeply congruous with Anabaptist values. Unlike the Reformers who operated with a one-person ministry model and insisted that all ministry must be parish based, the Anabaptists recognised people with itinerant ministries and released them, individually and in teams, to evangelise and plant churches. If congregations are to be established in areas where the churches are weak but the mission opportunities are great, similar flexibility and radical simplicity will be needed.

What kind of gifts and training would church planting team members need? How would such teams be funded? To whom would they be accountable? These and other practical questions will need to be carefully considered if this is to be recovered as an effective strategy for planting new churches. The Anabaptist tradition offers models and practices which may be very helpful, although they will need to be adapted to the contemporary situation. Among these is recognition of an apostolic ministry that is different from a settled ministry. Denominations that want not only to engage in church planting but to become missionary movements would do well to look afresh at the neglected apostolic ministry that has been recovered by several church planting movements, including sixteenth-century Anabaptism. Anabaptism also emphasised simple living and economic sharing, and this has the potential to release the resources needed for teams of church planters. Significant finance for mission can be released by community living, as our teams in East London have discovered. And Anabaptism has a long tradition of accountability in relationships, which could offer guidelines for the oversight of contemporary church planting teams.

This is a riskier form of church planting than the more familiar methods where a large team is used and a "mother church" exercises supervision. But an advantage of this method of church planting is that the team has greater freedom and incentive to be creative. Operating in relatively unchurched areas encourages reflection on why churches have not been established or have not flourished in these areas. Perhaps the relative rarity of this method of church planting is a further reason for the lack of ecclesiological creativity among church planters. What emerges may or may not be "Anabaptist," but this method of church planting has strategic importance if church planting is going to reach beyond suburbia to make an impact on many levels of society.

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6. The Church of England Newspaper (Friday 26 May 1995), 1.

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