Abstract:
The vigorous continual planting of new churches is the single most crucial strategy for the numerical growth of the body of Christ in a community and the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches. According to Timothy Keller, “nothing else—not crusades, outreach programs, parachurch ministries, growing megachurches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes, will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting”.1
Essentially all of the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20) is a call not just to “make disciples” but to baptize. In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshiping community with accountability and boundaries (cf. Acts 2:41–47). It can be argued that the only way it can increase the number of Christians in any given area is to increase the number of churches. Much traditional evangelism aims to get a “decision” for Christ. Experience, however, shows us that many of these decisions disappear and never result in changed lives. Many decisions are not really conversions but are only the beginning of a journey of seeking God. Only a person who is being evangelized in the context of an ongoing worshiping and shepherding community can be sure of finally coming home into vital, saving faith.
