Why Plant Churches?

I feel like I’ve entered a completely different world. It’s the world of church planting. I’ve been here before so I didn’t think this would be this unfamiliar. But maybe I’ve just forgotten the awkwardness of those early years. When you first plant a church, there aren’t many of you. I remember wearing many hats and not all fit well! I would be asked on Sunday mornings to do all kinds of tasks- from counseling women with deeply hurting hearts to please making sure I had a bigger trash can in a better spot in the women’s restroom next week! You get to know your people and their preferences really fast!

As we are looking to build the core team right now, people are checking us out to see if they want to be a part of this new church. We are praying and wondering who God is going to bring. We need people to pray, serve, care, bring others and hopefully become lifelong friends as we watch God do what only He can do! Tonight we got the question, “Why would you want to start a church? That seems so extreme.” Let me try and explain.

Maybe because every church we love and now attend had to be started somewhere by someone.

Maybe because roughly 3,500-4,000 churches close each year in the United States.

Maybe because new churches reach 6-8 times more unchurched people than established churches.

Maybe because it takes approximately 1 church per 1,000 people for adequate presence in a community.

Maybe because church attendance as a percentage of population has been in decline in the US.

Maybe because places like St Johns County, Florida that are experiencing rapid population growth need new churches to maintain the same church-to-population ratio

Maybe because studies show that areas with higher church density tend to have lower rates of crime and higher rates of community well-being

Maybe because the church we planted in Granger, IN, Gospel City Church, was the most life changing experience for me and others that I’ve ever seen!

People would often say that Jesus was baked into the walls at Gospel City. They felt His presence as they walked through the door. As we worshiped, opened our Bibles to hear what God wanted to say to His church, as we loved and cared for the people God brought, and they loved and cared for us, God began to change a whole community of people for His glory.

Miraculously, Gospel City planted 8 other churches in our 13 years there. Those 8 churches are also planting churches. In the thirty years that we have been in ministry, church planting has had the most kingdom impact than anything else we have experienced. The lives changed are a testimony to what God can do when people take Him at His Word. He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)

Is planting a church extreme? Maybe, but I know a God who went to extreme measures to seek and save me. Jesus left the perfection of heaven to come and plant himself here in this fallen world for 33 years in a human body. He lived a perfect life because He needed to live out the perfection of all who would become His. Jesus died a painful death on a cross and absorbed God’s wrath for all the sin that all of His children have and will commit. Jesus became sin for any who will repent and believe so that in Him, those people will become the righteousness of God. ( 2 Corinthians 5:21)

Is church planting extreme? Yes! It’s extremely important.