Missional Church Planting Conversation with Darrin Patrick in Chicago

Calling all Chicagoland church planters, aspiring church planters, and missional leaders...

Darrin Patrick, founding planter/pastor of The Journey church (St. Louis) and vice president of Acts 29 Network, is coming to Park Community Church next Tuesday, Feb. 17th, to lead a discussion on missional church planting. The event is informal and free of charge (yes!). If you are in the vicinity of Deerfield, a group of us from TEDS are meeting there and carpooling into the city. See the flier below for details. Hope to see you there!

Comments

  1. Why is the church planting new locations if our census isn't growing?

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  2. Do you mean of the American public at large? The issue is that (1) existing churches are plateaued or declining (most in mass numbers), and (2) as Peter Wagner puts it, "Church planting is the most effective evangelistic strategy we know of." In short, many if not most churches are not succeeding in multiplying disciples in their own communities, let alone all nations. I would agree that simply starting new churches in place of the old ones is no real improvement. The new ones have to be better, more in line with the Great Commission, led by visionary pastors with a heart for the lost and the community.

    Does that answer your question?

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  3. There's a second part to this that i forgot to mention: planting churches over trying to revitalize old ones. The fact is that the very reasons older churches are stagnant or declining is that they are insular, self-focused rather than outward/mission focused (not to mention the numerous cases of unfaithfulness to the gospel). In most cases, these churches are notorious for running new, fresh-thinking, outward-focused leaders out of town. They don't want change. And if a congregation doesn't want to change, you can't make them change. You can't pour new wine into old wineskins. Let the dead bury their own dead, i say.

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  4. Are we making new disciples or just shifting memberships around?

    Do we commit ourselves to a community of believers or cut and run, valuing our fellowship about as much as a Gladware container (good for a while but cheap enough to throw away)?

    Do we teach people how to stick it out when relationships become inconvenient, or buy into the "as long as we both shall perceive a benefit" way of the world?

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  5. Hey, i share your cynicism of sheep swapping and greener grass syndrome. Although some church plants do have this effect, truly missional planters will ensure that it doesn't happen. They will tell people to go back home if they have to. Their purpose is not to start something new simply for the sake of offering a better product to the masses of Christian consumers, but rather to lead a small group of committed disciples in mission to their lost communities. Church planting is God's method of expanding the kingdom. It is fundamentally a Great Commission enterprise. Being a committed community is not the mission itself, though it is a necessary prerequisite. Our love of "one another" has got to propel us into love of "the other." Going after the one lost sheep often requires leaving the 99 safe, secure ones. Think of the church planter as a missionary, whose mission is to take the gospel to those without a viable gospel community. I'm going to bluntly say that churches that are not missionally focused are not being faithful to the Great Commission. If a church isn't multiplying disciples, leading to a multiplication of churches, somewhere along the line it has missed something critical, whether it be the message or the mission.

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  6. I agree. We must be about our Father's business. My question is: Are we really doing that? What do the stats tell us? What do we learn from Barna?

    We have churches on every corner, and every school site in this part of the world. They keep popping up. But church attendance isn't increasing. What's happening? Either we are just shifting around or we are losing members as quickly as we are gaining.

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  7. You're preaching to the choir, here. :-) I couldn't agree more that more ≠ better. I honestly believe that most churches, including new ones, are missing something key. Probably several things. In short, they're losing the battle against postmodernity—or more accurately, ill-equipped to translate and incarnate the gospel in an increasingly postmodern context. "Contemporary" churches are succeeding in maintaining boomers, and out-of-the-box, personality-driven churches like Mars Hill Seattle (Driscoll) are doing a phenomenal job of attracting and discipling Xers and Millennials. I'm not sure many of the so-called "missional" and "emerging" churches are reaching large numbers of unbelievers and ex-nominal Christians. Postmodernity (or rather, the part of it that i would call Hypermodernity) is a force that tears at the very fabric of what it means to be human. And since church only works in the context of humannness, it is at odds with this force. This really is the driving thrust of my blog, and of my missional and ecclesiological thinking: we have to figure out exactly what are the non-negotiables of what it means to be an authentic, biblical church. I think we've accepted an overly reductionistic orthopraxy, or worse, assumed that orthodoxy was sufficient to ensure effectiveness in ministry. We've got to identify what exactly the postmodern situation is, find out what the Bible has to say about it, then follow through. I'm very sure that most churches have not taken a hard look at the first (the postmodern situation), and so have been winging "new ideas" from the hip. They've been treating symptoms instead of the disease. My vision for ministry is to see churches follow the above three steps, and add to them a huge faith that believes that God and His gospel are big enough to overcome even the gravest opponent.

    Thanks for your engagement on this issue. Happy Valentine's Day! :)

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