Church Planting Might Not Be As Complicated As You Think

J.D. Payne:

Pastors, are your mechanics, teachers, stay-at-home moms, managers, and college students sharing the gospel? Are your plumbers, servers, and business owners teaching one another the Word and having fellowship in small groups (Sunday School, home fellowships, family groups, etc.)? If so, then your church is much closer to church planting than you probably think.

Whenever we remove much of the hype, quantitative expectations, and North American cultural expressions of church planting, we come to recognize that church planting is not very glamorous. It involves small steps. It is about making disciples from out of the harvest and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded. If your people can do this, then by God’s grace, your church can plant churches. . . . many churches.

But, if we cannot make disciples, gather them, and teach them to obey, then we have a problem. . . a problem much deeper than believing that our church cannot be involved in church planting due to the lack of money, high caliber leaders, excellent musicians, etc., etc., etc..

Read the rest.