AEC2001
Plenary Session 3:
The Ten Most Important Things
I’ve Learned
about Church Planting
Part 8
Stuart Murray
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8. Establish light and flexible structures
While the core values provide a necessary foundation and
will not be revisited very often, the structures and programmes of a new church
should be open to frequent review. It is much easier in church life to start a
new activity than to stop an old one. Many churches are far too busy. Their
members are exhausted by trying to keep a program running, several components of
which are no longer serving a useful purpose. This uses up so much of their time
that they cannot build friendships outside the church. A missionary congregation
will do much less than a maintenance congregation. It will release its members
to relate to others in the community, and it will regularly assess its
activities to ensure they are still effective.
Planting a new church gives you an opportunity not only to
establish a light program and choose how many activities to run but also to
establish a thorough review process. Without such a process, meetings will
accumulate. And those with vested interests in these activities will resist
their closure or alteration. Church planters will be wise to be slow to
introduce new activities and to establish at the start a principle that
everything is open to review. This might mean committing the church to running
all its programs for a maximum of two years – and only continuing with those
that a careful review process concludes are still effective.
