Audio Transcript:

Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions.

Thanks for coming into Episode 208 of Missions on Point. We're in a series on church planting. Today we will consider what I call near culture concerns. This is in a setting in which a church is being planted nearby or within range of an existing church that may be the sponsoring or mother church for the church plant. Whether or not there is a sponsoring church, near culture means the same or virtually the same culture as those doing the church planting.

In the list I have for you today, I considered whether these should be before the church plant starts, or right at the church plant start, or after. And I realized that all of these considerations probably should be discussed and decided before the very first Sunday morning worship meeting of the new church plant, if possible.

I would encourage you to go back into the log of Missions on Point podcasts, because we've dealt with church planting primarily in a foreign missionary kind of context, but many of the principles still apply. A foundational principle that we teach and encourage is that every church should be involved in church planting, planning for church planting, be engaged in church planting. Whether it is near culture concerns, near cross culture concerns, or foreign culture concerns, with the idea of training and raising up leaders who will be effective church planters, both near and far.

I apologize for not alliterating the points on this particular episode. I have 11 points. Most of them are stated in a, this versus that kind of format.

1. So the first one is opportunity versus initiative, or another way of saying it is reactive versus proactive. This has to do with what is the precipitating factor for planting a church now. Was there a particular opportunity that presented itself, an invitation from some people who wanted to plant a church, or see a church planted where they live? Or was it an initiative, starting from scratch from a sponsoring or mother church?  So it's reactive versus proactive. My assumption is that reactive means that you have to get things in gear in order to respond. Proactive means that you may have already laid the groundwork for church planting before you ever decide exactly when and where it will happen.
2. The second concern is sponsorship versus independent agent, or having church ties or even a church association tie versus no church ties. Is it independent of a sponsoring church? It makes a big difference, and the influence of that sponsoring church, or group, or fellowship of churches, does make a big difference in how other concerns are answered.
3. The third concern is startup finances. This means there is a subsidy with obligations, or there's no obligations, whether it's a subsidy or no subsidy. But in the background behind this is a large degree of financial integrity, having financial plans, and sticking to them, and keeping good records. Especially because you assume, in American culture, that donations to the church for ministry will be tax-deductible, and there are some federal strings attached to that.
4. The fourth concern is having a long-term location versus short-term locations. Many church plants end up with short-term locations at the beginning. And short-term can be any place for a week, or a month, or a year, or more. Often, the church plant ends up moving and having to find other locations for their primary services.  If the Lord has graciously provided a long-term location right from the very beginning, that is a huge blessing.
5. The fifth concern is transition leadership versus long-term leadership. You could extend that to membership as well. I remember one sponsoring church wanting to start a cross-cultural ethnic church nearby, that asked their congregation to commit three years of membership in the ethnic church, even though most of them didn't speak any of that language.  Leadership can be that way also. Is the primary lead pastor a transitional or interim leader while the church works to grow and develop and call a longer-term pastor? Or is the church plant pastor the long-term pastor? Some would say that church planting has a special set of skills that should be continuously applied to church planting, and doesn't necessarily fit well in long-term shepherding and ongoing pastoral responsibilities.
6. The sixth concern is what I'm calling gospel forward versus gospel backward. That sounds kind of odd, but what I mean by that is, is the gospel going to be front and center in the church plant? Or is it going to be something else that is front and center, and the gospel is going to be articulated by different ways and means later after the church is planted?  There might be some situations where that actually is a good thing. My perspective is that it's always best to have the gospel forward. For instance, if there was a church plant following on the heels of a natural disaster in an area, where a mother church wanted to plant a daughter church among the people affected by this natural disaster, they might have a lot of other things going as priority on the front end to preserve life, or normalcy in life, before the gospel is again front and center as it ought to be.
7. The seventh concern is acoustic versus electronic. This also impacts the church plant's choice of printing materials versus projection of materials for worship. And of course, there are also combinations of those things. It's an important thing, because a small church plant just starting deciding to go electronic in most every way and projection has a huge bill to pay at the front end in order to establish that. Not only is it costly, but it's costly in personnel as well, because people have to be trained or gifted in using those electronic and projection means in order to get the job done.  I think it's better to do an excellent job of acoustic and printing means, rather than having a botched job, an embarrassing job of doing electronic and projection means.
8. Number eight, following on the heels of number seven is a style of worship, formal versus informal, or contemporary versus traditional. These have their own nuances and may be determined by your target audience or the community in which you're trying to plant a church.  The church planting leadership, or church planting team, shouldn't make assumptions that everyone is going to want to do things exactly the way we do them back in our home church. It certainly makes for a lively discussion among the church planting team and leaders, to find out exactly where we fall on the balance of formal versus informal, or contemporary versus traditional.  Most churches these days actually use a blend. We highly advocate having a single service, not having separate services for different styles.  Part of maturity and development as a believer is honoring and respecting people who favor styles other than your own, and vice versa, so that we get along in unity in the body. And we don't build artificial barriers of division between parts of the body.
9. Number nine, the concern is men's and women's roles. Even if the church leaders and the church inclination is to be complementarian rather than egalitarian, there still has to be discussion about the extent of that, and how men and women participate in the worship service, or in various roles of ministry in the church. It is way better to have that articulated and clear on the front end, with everybody involved, before someone has a blowout just because something happened that wasn't expected.
10. The 10th concern has a lot of ongoing ramifications. It is ministry to different age groups in the church, infants, preschoolers, children, youth, college, young adult, and seniors. I guess I failed to mention middle-aged adults or families with children. Each of these demographic groups require some special attention and thought. And even as the church plant begins, you may need to start thinking about how to accommodate ministry to each of these groups, particularly the youngest. Because, if you're going to be a family-oriented church and have everybody in the worship service, you're going to have a lively worship service with a lot of antsy kids if you don't provide some other means for them to be instructed in the word and in the gospel.
11. The last concern is not necessarily last in order. It may come very early in the order of development of church planting plans. It is the concern of formative documents. Every church needs to be recognized by legal registration with state and federal authorities. And there are certain forms to fill out and requirements to meet before the church can be recognized.  We already mentioned that you want to be recognized so that people who give to the church can receive a tax deduction for that donation. Not every country has that provision, but it is a welcome provision in ministry across the United States because it enables people to get some tax benefit for their donations to the charity of their choice.  Then there's bylaws, constitution, and statement of faith or doctrinal statement. These foundational documents are often crafted after the model of another familiar church, and there are lots of examples out there on the internet. Certainly, looking to a church that is most like you or a sponsoring church can be a great source for finding those bylaws, constitution, and statement of faith.  But every part of those, every line, sometimes every word, is important in the church plant to make wise decisions. You don't just automatically accept everything that's been written before as your own, because you are the people who are going to have to believe it, follow it and enforce it.  As part of the formative documents, you have to figure out what is the membership process? How do people become members? What are the requirements for members? What forms do they fill out? What classes do they take? What do they have to do to become a member? Often, in today's churches, that involves also a member covenant or affirmation. So the member covenant or affirmation is a relatively short document that explains exactly what is expected of members. Those things become extremely important if you have a conflict with a member that needs to be addressed, because you have a basis then, in the membership process and the member covenant, to help them understand what their obligations are, and what the reciprocal roles are for leaders and members. Last but not least of the formative documents is something about vision and values. It is very helpful for a church plant to clearly articulate the vision and values of this new church.  Every church plant is a little bit different. Even though you may adopt something that you have been fond of in the past, or have a history with in the past, or as part of the sponsoring mother church, still, you need to reframe it or rephrase it in your own terms, to make it very understandable to everyone coming to the church, this is what we stand for, this is our vision for ministry. This is our vision for who we are as a church, and these are the values that drive it, in simple terms.

Now, if you're interested in church planting, you need to be aware of these concerns. You need to be prepared to walk through, with the church planting team, the church plant elders or the church plant leaders, to work through all of these issues and come to agreement. It's very important that the church planting team, all those involved, the early members and the early leaders, be on the same page and be in unity about it, be willing to support and defend it to visitors and others, to be able to articulate all these things, and why the decisions were made the way they were so that people have an understanding and everyone is speaking the same language on the church plant team.

May God give you all grace and courage to desire to plant a church and be involved in church planting, either as a goer or a sender.

Thanks for joining us today on Missions on Point. We trust that you'll find more help and resources on our websites at Propempo.com and missioserve.org. We are so thankful for those who support us, enabling us to produce this podcast. Now to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.