Comments on: Planting Church

By: churchoutreach

churchoutreach — Sun, 02 May 2010 13:06:24 +0000

A really wonderful and inspiring post! The church really helps us plant somethign in our spirits.

By: Jackie G.

Jackie G. — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:19:20 +0000

Tim
Thanks for your post your blog and through it finding Founders Ministries has been a timely blessing in my husband and I’s life. We are finding ourselves to be people who identify with the reformed tradition without a reformed church in our community. We are in the process of actively pursuing getting a reformed church in our community as the Lord wills. I don’t suppose the thought of planting a church in NE Nevada where the temperature was -8 this morning at 5:48 AM appeals to anyone in FL?

By: Heath Lloyd

Heath Lloyd — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:27:01 +0000

Thanks Tim for this post, and the courage to post it. I get apprehensive when the method becomes the message. It scares me to think that God is being left out of man’s equation in planting. I also resonate with your views that the planter is expected to be “cultured” (i.e. cool). But I believe it was Paul who said that the planter is “nothing” (1 Cor 3:7).

May He build His church, His way, to His glory.

By: Keith Walters

Keith Walters — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:25:25 +0000

Timmy,
Great post, I share many of your sentiments. I think that in many ways the church planting movement (CPM) is headed in the same direction that the church growth movement (CGM) headed in the 1970’s and is in danger of becoming another scientific numbers game. For all effective purposes the CGM died once it was severed from its missional roots and lost its missiological concern. The CGM was founded upon Donald McGavran’s missionary work in India as he was influenced by men such as Roland Allen and their original concern for multiplying churches among the nations rather than growing megachurches in the US. Once the CGM was severed from its theological, missiological, and anthropological roots the movement became a statistician’s numbers game and methodology became the servant of statistics rather than a servant of theology. I see a similar tendency as the market has become increasingly saturated with works on church planting; most of which have effectively severed the methodology of planting from its theological and missiological roots. This is dangerously pragmatic and the newfound interest in a very helpful subject risks extinction, or simply irrelevance, if such pragmatism continues to rule the day. I hope and pray that we may see profoundly theological church planting works written in the near future, but to this day I have found few that satisfy in this area.

By: Randy Alston

Randy Alston — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:02:51 +0000

Thanks bro. Good word.

By: Joanie Regnier

Joanie Regnier — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:34:42 +0000

I appreciate what you have said in this article. And appreciate what Piper has to say as well. I echo what you said: “We should continually remind one another that we exist to serve Christ’s eternal purposes through His church that He is committed to building. We labor as servants with the good seed of the gospel because He will bring the increase. In essence, we are joining Jesus in planting church, not church planting. With that in mind, we will continually remind ourselves that it is not about personalities, programming but a people Christ is forming together who God will use to make Himself known to those on earth as well as those in heaven.”