Two weeks ago, we had a “send out Sunday” for Mission Church and Kyle & Colleen Gennicks, and the commission team. This past week, they began their Sunday meetings!
This is a good opportunity to remember why we plan to be a church-planting church. Here are a few reasons:
1) A BIBLICAL reason: Great Commission + the book of Acts = Jesus’ mandate for church planting.
2) A THEOLOGICAL reason: Simply put, people need redemption. This world (of millions and millions of people!) desperately needs redemption. And throughout our area, there are thousands and thousands of people who are not worshipping Jesus. If God’s mission is to redeem people (and eventually all things) through Christ, and if he has chosen the local church (however imperfect) as his method for spreading Christ’s kingdom, then let’s get busy planting churches! As Peter Wagner famously observed, “Planting new churches is the single most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven.”
3) A VISION reason: As gospel-centered people, we want to exist for something bigger than ourselves. We want to glorify Christ through making disciples locally, but we also want to participate in His global mission through church planting near and far.
4) A RENEWAL reason: Church planting spreads gospel renewal. This is true not only among those sent and in the community where the church is planted, but also in the sending church. Tim Keller observes, “Strange as it may seem, the planting of new churches in a city is one of the very best ways to revitalize many older churches in the vicinity and renew the Body of Christ as a whole.”
5) A “WHO WE ARE” reason: Since the early days of our church’s life, we’ve had a strength in leadership development. We’ve been a church with a depth of discipleship, and a church that has exported a surprising number of pastors and leaders — most of them simply by releasing them and sending them off to serve or plant with other organizations. Going forward, as a disciple-making and leader-developing church, we want to do a better job of not just releasing leaders, but sending them on purpose for the sake of the gospel mission.