April 2023

A note from Ted

Midwest Alliance Director

What’s New
April 2023

Over the last several months I’ve been asked multiple times, “How has church planting changed over the years? What changes are you seeing in how churches are planted these days?”

On the one hand, there’s much that HASN’T changed. Making countless connections in the community. Building relationships and casting vision. Forming and equipping a core group and launch team. Finding a place to meet. And all the while praying, praying, praying, understanding that unless God is in it, it’s just not going to happen, at least in a healthy and meaningful way.

I also believe that every church plant is a unique, custom-designed work of the Holy Spirit. There is no cookie-cutter formula for planting a church even though there ARE time-tested principles and activities that one should be fleshing out in one’s specific context.

Having said all that, I’d say the biggest change is that one has to be prepared for the long haul more than ever. It often takes much longer to plant a biblically healthy, outwardly focused church these days in our increasingly secularized culture. For years the expected timetable was to be self-sustaining and self-governing in about three years. And there are still situations where that is very appropriate. But more often than not, we need to think in terms of 4-5 years, and frequently 6-7, and sometimes, even 10. This all depends on factors such as size and giving-capacity of a core group or whether the plant is in an under-resourced community, or whether the context might be quite diverse and thus take longer to build street cred (learning the culture, the needs and idols of the community, over-coming hurdles to build quality relationships, etc). This means that churches and presbytery committees have to shift their thinking when it comes to such things as funding strategies, networking and gathering methodology, and expectations of when a work is likely to be self-sustaining. It means that, in many cases, planters will need to consider some form of bivocational ministry. It means that, in many cases, sponsoring churches will need to consider longer commitments. In short, we need to have much more of a “foreign missions mentality” when it comes to planting churches in our own country or region.

I see this happening more and more across the Midwest and the US and is something we need to all be seriously taking into account as we map out a vision and plan for planting churches including our strategies, assessment, funding, training, coaching, and expectations.

Also, bringing awareness to the changing demography in the US is key. This article by Tish Harrison Warren in the New York Times outlines some of what we can see already, and some of what experts say we should prepare for. It’s worth thinking about, including the underlying need to grow in our abilities to relate across cultures.