Why should we start new churches?

Tim Keller writes…….

Introduction

There is a very common objection to reading the book of Acts as a call and challenge to start new churches. It goes like this: “That was then! Now, at least in N.America and Europe, we have churches all over the place. We don’t need to start new churches, we should strengthen and fill the existing churches before we do that.” Taking Acts 16:6-12 as church-planting case study, here are some answers:

Numerous new churches are the only way to really expand the number of Christians in a city.

New churches reach the non-churched far more effectively than longer-existing churches. Dozens of studies confirm that the average new church gains most of its new members from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10-15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other congregations.2 This means that the average new congregation will bring new people into the life of the Body of Christ at 6-8 times the rate of an older congregation of the same size. Why would this be? As a congregation ages, powerful internal institutional pressures lead it to allocate most of its resources and energy toward the concerns of its members and constituents, rather than toward those outside its walls. This is natural and to a degree desirable. Older congregations therefore have a stability and steadiness that many people need. And we must also remember that many people will only be reached by churches with deep roots in the community and with the trappings of stability and respectability. However, these dynamics explain why a majority of congregations that are 25 years old or older are in numerical decline. New congregations, in general, are forced to focus on the needs of their non-members, simply in order to get off the ground. And so they do a far better job of outreach. Our conclusion—the only way to significantly increase the overall number of Christians in a city is by significantly increasing the number of churches.

Many new churches are the only way to reach the sheer diversity of the city

New churches have far greater ability to reach the constant stream of new generations, new immigrant groups, and new residents that come to a city. For instance: if new white-collar commuters move into an area where the older residents were farmers, it is likely that a new church will be more receptive to the myriad of needs of the new residents, while the older churches will continue to be oriented to the original social group. Again: if an all-Anglo neighborhood becomes 33% Hispanic, a new, deliberately bi-racial church will be far more likely to create 'cultural space' for newcomers than will an older church in town, where Anglos will have far more power through their longer tenure. Finally, brand new immigrant groups nearly always can only be reached by churches ministering in their own language. If we wait until a new group is assimilated into American culture enough to come to our existing churches, we will wait for years without reaching out to them. New congregations actually empower new people much more quickly and readily than do older churches. Thus they always have and always will reach them with greater facility than long-established bodies. This means, of course, that church planting is not only for 'frontier regions' or ‘mission fields.’ Cities will have to maintain vigorous, extensive church planting to even maintain the number of Christians in a region. We believe that one church, no matter how big, will never be able to serve the needs of such a diverse city. Only a movement of hundreds of churches, small and large, can penetrate literally every neighborhood and people group in the city.

New churches are the only ministries that become self-supporting and expand the base for other ministries in a city

A city needs many ministries--youth work, schools, missions to new groups, and so on. All of them are 'charities' which need to be supported from outside of their own staff and workers. Once such ministries are begun, they need outside funding from Christian givers indefinitely. (This is not a criticism of such ministries. See our paper on ‘Why to Launch New Ministries.) A new church, however, only requires outside, start-up funding at its beginning. Within a few years, it becomes the source of Christian giving to other ministries, not the object of it. Because new churches bring in large numbers of non-churched people to the work of the kingdom, church planting is by far the fastest way to grow the number of new givers in the kingdom work in a city. New church development is the best way to help all the other numerous ministries in a city thrive and grow. They need a constant stream of new Christian volunteers, workers, and givers to keep them going. New churches are the head waters of that stream.

New churches are one of the best ways to renew the existing churches of a city

In a discussion on new church development, the question often arises: “But what about all the existing churches in the city? Shouldn’t you be working to strengthen and renew them?” Planting lots of new churches is one of the best ways to renew existing churches. First, the new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body. It is the new churches that have freedom to be innovative and they become the 'Research and Development' department for the whole Body in the city. Often the older congregations are too timid to try a particular approach, absolutely sure it would 'not work here.' But when the new church in town succeeds spectacularly with some new method, the other churches eventually take notice and get the courage to try it themselves. Second, new churches surface new, creative Christian leaders for the city. Older congregations find leaders who support tradition, have tenure, like routine, and have kinship ties. New congregations, on the other hand, attract a higher percentage of venturesome people who value creativity, risk, innovation and future orientation. Often older churches 'box out' many people with strong leadership skills who cannot work in more traditional settings. New churches thus attract and harness many people in the city whose gifts would otherwise not be utilized in the work of the Body. These new leaders eventually benefit the whole Body city-wide.

Promoting new churches gets you into a kingdom mindset

Test: When we "lose" 2 families to a church that brings in 100 new people who weren't going to any other church, we have a choice! We must ask ourselves: "Are we going to rejoice in the new people that the kingdom has gained through this new church, or are we going to bemoan and resent the two families we lost to it?"

In other words, our attitude to new church development is a test of whether our mindset is geared to our own institutional turf, or to the overall health and prosperity of the kingdom of God in the city. Will we resent the 10 people we have lost or rejoice in the 80 people the kingdom has gained? Vigorous church planting requires the ability to care for the kingdom even more than for your tribe. We see this in the way Paul talks of Apollos, who, though not a disciple of his (Acts 18:24ff.) Paul speaks of in the warmest terms (1 Cor.3:6; 4:9; 16:12) even though his disciples evidently considered themselves a particular party (1 Cor1:12; 3:4) We see it in the way Paul (as said before) constantly takes his hands off new churches. 16:40--then he left. What we have here is a concern not for his own power or his party's power (and even then, different apostles had their followers and emphases), but for the kingdom as a whole.

Sum

In the ministry in Acts--church planting is not a traumatic or unnatural event. It is not something odd or once-in-a lifetime. It is not forced on people by circumstances. Church planting is woven into the warp and woof of things, it happens constantly, it happens normally. Paul never evangelizes and disciples without also church planting. For decades, expositors looked to Acts to find 'the basic elements of ministry'. They always made lists such as these: Bible teaching, evangelism, fellowship, discipleship, worship. Yet right there along with everything else is church planting, but it is often ignored. There's a very dubious, tacit 'cessationism' going on here! Implicitly, almost unconsciously, readers said, 'well, but that was for then--we don't do that now". But the principle is--church planting must be natural and constant, not traumatic and episodic. Since we live in the Acts-world again, it is doubly important to make church multiplication a central ministry strategy.

2 Lyle Schaller, quoted in D.McGavran and G.Hunter, Church Growth: Strategies that Work (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980), p. 100. See C.Kirk Hadaway, New Churches and Church Growth in the Southern Baptist Convention (Nashville: Broadman, 1987).

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