More Talk About Church Planting

By now you have hopefully been able to reflect a little on New Life’s projected timeline for the next five years. That timeline is printed on our “Looking to the Future” piece, which we have been talking about the last two Sundays, and which are available for you to pick up in the foyer. This campaign is our denomination’s way of encouraging all of its local congregations to be involved in planting churches in some way. Here at New Life, we want to be actively involved in the starting of new Gospel-centered congregations in central Indiana. But that’s not the end of it — not only do we hope to continue planting churches, but we want to plant churches who are also committed to planting churches themselves.

I have heard different words used to describe the timeline. Some are saying it is “quick” and “aggressive,” while others have said it is “conservative” and “too long.” This suggests there might be some questions about the details of this timeline, and about church planting more specifically. If you are wondering why our timeline seems to project the starting of our first daughter church so far out in the future (start budgeting in 2013, core group gathered in 2014), the answer is that we want to proceed carefully to make sure that our church’s first experience in this mission is a positive one. Church planting is challenging work, fraught with many potential pitfalls. Our goal is not just to start churches, but to start healthy, vibrant, grace-centered, outwardly-focused churches.

Recently I was in Chicago for a two-day seminar with PCA church planters from the Midwest. Attending were church planters from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota and Kentucky. It was exciting to hear stories from these pastors about God’s faithfulness to them on the field, and to hear from our denominational leaders about how committed the PCA is to the important task of starting new churches. The PCA is among the top five most aggressive denominations in the nation in church planting.

And yet there is so much work to do. We were told at the seminar that while there are more pastors looking for positions than there are vacancies at established churches, there are many more communities asking for new PCA churches than there are church planters to send. Please join us in supporting and praying as we think through and plan all the details necessary for this calling.

My love to you in Christ,
Bob