The Definition of Church Planting
Spreading religious convictions is an important step in maintaining the life of any given church. In some religions, spreading religious beliefs is seen as a duty of the religion itself. For example, Christians believe that Jesus Christ commanded them to spread Christ's message. This results in church planting. Church planting increases the number of followers of any given religion, as well as the number of regions in which people follow a particular faith.
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Definition
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According to Cdomaha.com, church planting is the process of taking a set of religious beliefs and inserting them into another region and culture. The beliefs are "seeds" of information or habits, while the region and its culture is "soil" in which the seeds can grow.
Propagation
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Church planting is always fluid, as pointed out by Missiology.org. In other words, planted churches grow and then propagate or plant additional new churches. How a planted church propagates depends on many factors such as the openness of a people to new concepts and the resources available to the planted church. If propagation is intense enough, it may be called a church planting movement. The International Mission Board emphasizes that such movements require people to drive momentum for the church and that missionaries or other religious leaders thus can initiate church planting movements but can't sustain them alone.
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Effective Church Planting
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Effective church planting has four major guidelines, according to Missiology.org. These include seeing the missionary (church planting) work as a spiritual activity, as well as having a vision for the new church and seeking to implement that specific vision. Effective church planting also involves learning to communicate in a way that works in the given culture. The last guideline is to figure out how relationships are intertwined in the new culture.
Challenges
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Church planting faces major challenges. These include a lack of resources, censorship in the new culture and overcoming ingrained traditional customs. Perhaps the biggest challenge in church planting, however, is finding enough willing religious leaders and missionaries, since church planting does not provide much monetary compensation and opens the leader or missionary up to persecution.
Church Planting vs. Church Development
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People sometimes confuse church planting with church development. Church planting creates an entirely new church where there previously was none. Church development merely modifies an existing church in some way (e.g., adding new services). However, planted churches always need a period of church development.
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References
- Photo Credit church image by pearlguy from Fotolia.com
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