fbpx
×

Log into your account

We have changed software providers for our subscription database. Old login credentials will no longer work. Please click the "Register" link below to create a new account. If you do not know your new account number you can contact [email protected]
Stetzer: Make church planters heroes
Mickey Noah, Baptist Press
March 25, 2011
6 MIN READ TIME

Stetzer: Make church planters heroes

Stetzer: Make church planters heroes
Mickey Noah, Baptist Press
March 25, 2011

ALPHARETTA, Ga. – Ed Stetzer, vice president of research and ministry

development at LifeWay Christian Resources, exhorted about 180 North American

Mission Board employees to “be known as the entity that stands with young

church planters, even when they make stupid mistakes.”

At the invitation of NAMB President Kevin Ezell, Stetzer spoke at the mission

board in mid-March, drawing from his most recent book, Viral Churches: Helping

Church Planters Become Movement Makers, coauthored with Warren Bird, research

director at the Dallas-based Leadership Network.

Stetzer used Ephesians 3:10 as his scriptural base in his three-hour

presentation. He noted that “while there’s no verse in the Bible that says,

‘Thou shall plant churches,’ the New Testament church was a church-planting

church. It was their practice. Asking the early Christians to plant churches is

like asking water to be wet.

“God didn’t choose art or music or even mission agencies to plant churches. He

chose the church. Churches planting churches – through multiplication, not

addition – is the key.”

Stetzer said church planting has become trendy. Last year, 4,000 new Protestant

churches were planted across the U.S. while 3,500 closed. So in a shift from the past, more

Protestant churches are being planted than are closing. The commonly quoted

statistic that 80 percent of all new church starts fail is a myth, Stetzer

said, citing a NAMB research project reported in Viral Churches involving

planters from several denominations.

Photo by John Swain

Ed Stetzer, vice president of research and ministry development at LifeWay Christian Resources, discussed his new book Viral Churches: Helping Church Planters Become Movement Makers, coauthored with Warren Bird, with about 180 North American Mission Board employees in Alpharetta, Ga. Stetzer exhorted the group to love young church planters and make them heroes in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Comparing church planting to childbirth, Stetzer called church planting messy.

“Both are wonderful things, but they are bloody, painful, messy, and there can

be a lot of yelling,” he said. “But you’re ready to have another one because

it’s such a wonderful experience.

“Some Baptists have forgotten the joy of childbirth when it comes to new

churches. Unfortunately, some traditional church members of the Southern

Baptist Convention see young church planters as the competition.”

Stetzer said Southern Baptists choose church planters who are atypical,

self-starting mavericks and then wonder why they can be challenging at times.

“If you at NAMB want to be known as the agency that loves young church

planters, love them differently than you love pastors because they are

different than pastors. Church planters have a different constitution, a

different wiring than the rest of us,” Stetzer said. “That’s why they’re church

planters.”

Saying that more Protestant churches as a whole need to be engaged in church

planting, Stetzer noted that only 3 percent of them are involved in church

planting, which is commonly accepted as the best way to share the Gospel and

win the world for Christ. Stetzer said church planting and evangelism go hand

in hand.

“Church planting should be promoted as a normal activity of Christians.

Disciples, groups, ministries and churches must reproduce. But church planting

is an abnormal experience to most of our churches,” Stetzer said. “So why

should we not be surprised that there’s not a lot of church reproduction going

on?

“All healthy things reproduce. But we have a lot of churches that have allowed

themselves to be the cul de sac on the Great Commission Highway. I don’t want my church or yours to be that.”

Stetzer said NAMB and other SBC leaders must re-instill a culture of reproduction in

churches, adding that over time, churches become more inward-focused unless

there’s some provoking from the outside.

“We have had the expectation of church reproduction before, but we have lost

it. One reason we lost it is that we have taught our churches too often that

missions is a function that we outsource to somebody else.

“We have taught the churches that their job is to ‘Pray, pay and get out of the

way.’ What we end up with is they become convinced that their role is to be

funders of missions, not participants in missions. Half

of our churches become spenders for missions rather than engaged in missions.

Baptists can be missions-minded without being missionally engaged.”

And while SBC funding for church planting is “embarrassingly low,”

Stetzer said funding ultimately has no correlation to church planting success

or survivability.

“You can’t buy your way into church multiplication,” Stetzer said. “I’m a believer

in funding church planters well. And while funding assists and catalyzes church

planting, it’s not the total fix but only one of the factors we need to

confront. When you don’t have the systems of church multiplication in place,

you can throw money away.”

Stetzer concluded by calling on NAMB to celebrate church planters as heroes.

“What we celebrate we become. We need to talk about how many we send out, not

how many we got in. Help Southern Baptists to fall in love with their church

planters. For too long, people have looked down on bi-vocational pastors,

unpaid pastors and on non-seminary-trained pastors. NAMB needs to be one of

those places that says, ‘We’re going to bless all kinds of church planters.’

“I know it’s been tough … at NAMB,” Stetzer said. “But in the fullness of His

sovereignty, God has prepared the Southern Baptist Convention to now say,

‘We’re going to value church planting.’ What NAMB now needs to do is ask how it

can seize this moment. Let NAMB be the one to get behind significant church

planting leaders and networks.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Noah writes for the North American Mission Board.)

(SPECIAL NOTE — Thank you for your

continued support of the Biblical Recorder site. During this interim period

while we are searching for a new Editor/President the comments section will be

temporarily discontinued. Thank you for your understanding and patience in

this. If you do have comments or issues with items we run, please contact [email protected]

or call 919-847-2127.)