Thanks for following along this week as I've asked the question, "Why Plant Churches?" Obviously, this is an important question to me as I prepare to plant another church in Philadelphia. But my hope through this series of posts is that it will become an important question to you as well--no matter what your particular ministry assignment may be.
You can listen to the message from Tim Keller that inspired these posts. You can also catch up on part one, part two, part three, and part four.
Reason #4: Church planting is an exercise in Kingdom-thinking.
Keller says that the main problem that some churches see with church planting is actually the main reason to go ahead and plant a church.
If your the Lead Pastor of an established church, and you decide to mother a church or support a church plant in your community, you will probably have people from your church help start the new church. Additionally, fast-growing church plants will often attract some people out of existing churches. Even though that shouldn't be the goal, it's the reality. When this happens, existing churches are faced with a question. Will we rejoice over the hundreds of people who will be added to the kingdom, or resent the few families who were lost from our church?
I'd argue that's an important question for every pastor to face.
Of course, church planters have the responsibility of partnering with other pastors in the community in an ethical way, and developing healthy lines of communication. But even when it's done the right way, the tension still remains.
Church planting always means saying goodbye for the sake of the Kingdom. For Leah and I, planting another church required us to say goodbye to close family and friends. For our church in Michigan, it required saying goodbye to us. Fortunately, the pain serves to reposition the Kingdom of God in our hearts.
And I can't think of a better reason to plant churches than that.
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