Evangelism Handbook

While much can be lamented about conventional church life in the Western evangelical church, there have been promising signs of late. One such sign is the renewed vigor and attention given to church planting. Bob Roberts, a leader in the church-planting movement, has seen this shift. “Twenty years ago when I started NorthWood in Texas there weren’t a lot of people wanting to start churches—especially the more gifted people. Now there are many,” Roberts wrote. He then observed what I see among so many of my gifted students today: “To many, church planting is becoming the ‘pastorate of choice’ as opposed to taking some existing church filled with other people’s headaches!” He then adds a comment that summarizes much of the buzz among students I mentor at Southeastern. “Now, when I hear young pastors talk, they are all talking about wanting to start church planting movements.”³

“A seismic shift is beginning to rumble in the North American church, especially in church planting,” Stetzer observed. “For about twenty years church planting has moved from ‘suspicious activity’ at best to ‘en vogue’ in the body of Christ.”⁴

Still, many object to the idea. Keller cited three primary reasons many church leaders object:⁵

Objection One: “We already have plenty of churches that have lots and lots of room for all the new people who have come to the area. Let’s get them filled before we go off building any new ones.” I well remember while serving in Indiana a discussion about planting a new church in a town of more than 20,000 with one SBC church averaging in the teens and virtually no other evangelical church. The pastor of the one existing church had a fit. “That is our town to reach,” he argued. He had been there more than seven years and had reached about four people.

Objection Two: “Every church in this community used to be more full than it is now. The churchgoing public is a ‘shrinking pie.’ A new church here will just take people from churches already hurting and weaken everyone.”

It is true that some church plants take members from others (that is likely not stealing sheep but growing greener grass). However, if you are the one planting the church, the last people you want to reach are members ready to jump from other churches. If your new church grows by reaching those from other churches, you are reaching the very people who will keep you from going after the unchurched!

Objection Three: “Help the churches that are struggling first. A new church doesn’t help the ones we have that are just keeping their nose above water. We need better churches, not more churches.” First of all, we can do both at once. Second, one of the better ways to help a struggling church is to get it involved in church planting.

One of the roles a new church plant can play in an established church is to refocus the mother church back to her original, biblical focus. The name C. S. Lewis often comes up in discussions of apologetics, philosophy, or literature but rarely in a discussion on church planting. But his words to the church give both an ominous warning to the contemporary church and sound the trumpet for new churches. “There exists in every church something that sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence.” He adds, “So we must strive very hard, by the grace of God to keep the church focused on the mission that Christ originally gave to it.”⁶ As giving birth to a child often causes a couple to refocus on what matters, birthing a new church can refocus a mother church.

Keller argued winsomely for the place of church planting for those who will study the possibilities:

I would argue in the cities we need large churches as well, those that can wield much influence. But even in those cases such churches should be building the kingdom more than an empire. Pastor Johnny Hunt of the First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia, leads a massive megachurch in the Atlanta area that also has planted many churches in the United States and across the globe. The future model of success must go beyond simple American utilitarianism (“bigger is better”) and see a vision of multiplying churches as well as growth in the mother church.

Why do we need new churches? In many areas there seem to be churches on every corner. The reality is that in the United States there were 28 churches for every 10,000 people in 1900. In 2004, there were only 12 churches for every 10,000 people.⁹ While part of that statistic is due to the fact that churches are larger today than a century ago, the U. S. population has quadrupled in that time! We still have not kept up with the population growth.

Actually, church planting is not the point. The Great Commission is the point. But church planting can breed a spiritual movement that helps to fulfill the Great Commission, both in the United States and globally. David Garrison accurately describes the need of the day, for a church-planting movement that will reach multitudes. Garrison called a church-planting movement “a rapid multiplication of indigenous churches planting churches that sweeps through a people group or population segment.”¹⁰ Rather like what you see in Acts. We would all agree this is needed in the 10/40 window. I would submit we need it in the cities of the West as well. He rightly noted that this is not the same as a spiritual awakening, which revives a dozing church. A church-planting movement is a movement of God just as powerful as an awakening; only it sweeps across communities birthing multitudes into the kingdom. Having studied and taught on awakenings for decades, I am convinced we need God to move in the church, and in the culture, through awakening and church planting!

I have taught a number of young students who left the campus ready to change the world by planting a church. Most worked through our denominational system. What I call the “sow lots of seed and some plants will grow” approach basically seeks to get as many church planters as possible, normally a young couple finishing seminary, sending them all over creation with a timetable of typically about three years. At that point or sooner financial support will run out. The young couple goes to the field, excited, often not equipped enough or acquainted with their field, with a ticking clock over their head. I have had many students follow a version of this approach. Some have been quite successful. Many have not. Too many have finished their time not only with no vibrant church planted but also with a sense of failure that clouds their early ministry.

This approach can work in some settings. But in others, especially in large cities with great cultural barriers to cross, it can actually be nothing more than a set up for failure. Pastor Charles Lyons of Armitage Baptist Church in the heart of Chicago has observed this. He told me of a young seminary couple (white, obviously not from the area they sought to reach) who came and worked diligently to start a church there. But alone, with little accountability and few with whom to talk (and a little overconfidence rather than a desire to learn from those who had been there for decades), their efforts were not successful. I have seen this far too often. Such an approach allows large numbers of church plants to be reported at national assemblies. But is this really the best way?

A more recent approach is what I would call “find the man of God and turn him lose” approach. This strategy says essentially that the total number of church plants will be determined by how many God-called, gifted men (or teams) are found to plant a church. This approach also tends to put much emphasis on things like internships and ongoing training. Such an approach starts smaller, but I would argue that its emphasis on planting multiplying churches would lead long term to more actual churches being planted that will survive.

Obviously the early church had to plant churches because there were none when they began their efforts to fulfill the Great Commission. How did the first believers plant churches?

In Jerusalem (Acts 1–7), a movement of prayer (Acts 1:12–14) and the Spirit (2:1–4) birthed the first church. Personal witness and public proclamation in the culture (2:10–39) brought the first converts. They immediately displayed the marks of a church: they were baptized (2:41); there were teaching (2:42), worship (2:42,46), a sense of wonder and God’s power (often missed in today’s church—2:43), service and ministry (2:44–45; see also 4:34–35), impact in the culture (2:47), evangelism (2:47; see 4:32), and a daily, missional focus (2:46–47).

Following the instructions of Jesus in Acts 1:8, churches were planted soon thereafter in Judea and Samaria (Acts 8–12). Much of this work was begun by regular believers, “laity,” rather than the apostles (8:1–4). The movement was led by God (e.g., see 8:26,29; 9:11–17), the gospel was spread personally (8:4,27–40; 10:34–48) and through preaching (8:5; 9:20), miracles were performed (9:35–42), and many were reached, both Jews and Gentiles (9:31).

Finally, churches were planted “to the ends of the earth” in Acts 13–28. Through the leadership of the Spirit (Acts 13:1–3) the gospel again was proclaimed personally (11:19–23) and by preachers; multitudes were reached (e.g., see 11:20–24), particularly in the cities, and churches were begun.

Ed Stetzer has forgotten more about church planting than I know. He offered several models of church planting in his excellent book Planting Missional Churches:¹¹

A team could either divide mother church into multiple daughter churches or become staff members of the founded church.

You can see examples of the first model on the international mission field, and in some cases in the West with catalytic church planters.

My family has been part of the second model for about 15 years now. Only a couple years old when we moved to Wake Forest and meeting on the seminary campus, the church has grown dramatically in its early years. Bill Hybels at Willow Creek, Andy Stanley at North Pointe, Ed Young at Fellowship near Dallas, and Rick Warren at Saddleback Community Church in southern California are only a few of the many examples of this approach today.

Model 3 can be seen in the experience from the 1980s when three young men and their wives graduated from Bible college and seminary and headed to California. They went to Bakersfield, California, each family serving a different church. After an initial time of what could only be described as unsuccessful ministry, they came together to launch Valley Baptist Church. Today Valley stands as a strong megachurch, with two of the three still serving as copastors. They learned well the strength that comes in numbers.

Stetzer gives the historical example of Columba on the island of Iona. I would add the societies of John Wesley. While not begun as a church-planting movement, many of these and those who led them eventually formed into new Methodist churches. Others would argue the house-church approach seen in Asia and other places could be an example of this.

The best strategy for new churches is not a young couple set apart as church planters—it is pregnant churches sending teams to birth new babies. We see this in a sense at Antioch in Acts 13. We see plural being used more than singular: men of Cyprus and Cyrene going to Antioch in Acts 11, Paul and Barnabas and John Mark and Luke and Timothy and others together in various cities.

Bob Roberts in Multiplying Churches argued for this:

Nelson Searcy, founder of Journey Church in New York City, called the three “deadly sins” that kill church planting lack of calling, lack of strategy, and lack of funds.¹³ All the passion and idealism in the world still requires these three. Searcy describes in great detail how to launch large and quickly to get a church plant going early and effectively. In some settings, particularly in urban areas with large unreached populations, this can be quite effective. In his case, the massive shift of young professionals into his area over the previous decade provided a demographic to which he could easily relate. For Nelson, his calling, ability to secure funds (which included times of faith-testing!), and a clear strategy to reach those in his area led to great success for Journey.

On the other hand, Joel Rainey provided sage advice on the rigors of church planting in more typical settings. His aptly titled book Church Planting in the Real World gives an honest appraisal of the difficulty in planting churches. If you are a young minister who is simply weary of conventional churches and who finds the idea of church planting to be a pretty sexy one, read Rainey’s book. Church planting is hard work. It is different than working with an established, more conventional church. But it is not less hard. It will require great faith, the hand of God, sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, and much courage. Rainey gives reasons why not to start a church:

Denominations and other groups can help in the church-planting enterprise. However, one cannot assume that simply because a group has many cooperating churches and resources available that effective church planting can result. Too often well-meaning denominational groups have been guilty of what my former student and current pastor of a church-planting church, J. D. Greear, called “bad parachurch”:

Greear went on to note that his tradition, Southern Baptists, began with a “good parachurchism”—churches took the initiative, and the agencies of the convention helped them to accomplish their aims. Over time in at least some areas that attitude changed to expect the churches to give resources to the agencies, which apparently knew better how to use them. The result has been a growing bureaucracy and institutionalism that have caused some to question the level to which they will support such agencies in a “bad parachurch” model too often seen today.

The strategy of pooling large sums of money in a denominational agency to use in sending young, barely equipped couples to places with which they are unfamiliar to plant a church in a set period of time (two to three years, normally) has simply not led to vibrant growth across the nation. The obsession with the numbers of new church plants must be supplanted with effective, multiplying churches. Better to take time with a team to plant a healthy congregation which over time will plant many others than to send out numbers of couples prepared more for failure than anything else. Or, much better for denominational entities to be less of a sending agency and more of a networking partner (i.e., a midwife) with pregnant churches and potential church plants. There seems to be an increasing move in that direction.

Stetzer noted that whereas in the New Testament one can see teams and individuals and even laity planting churches (he notes Aquila and Priscilla; I would add the spontaneous spread of the gospel leading to the church at Antioch in Acts), and that agencies and denominations can do so, the best way to plant churches is by churches planting new churches. As a historian who has studied for decades the great awakenings, I would argue from Acts and history that the best church-planting movements started with no human agency but by the Holy Spirit. However, I would agree that intentional church-planting efforts are best led by mother churches. The Sandy Creek Baptist Church in North Carolina was founded in the 1700s out of the Great Awakening with two men who were converted through the ministry of George Whitefield and then became Baptists. That one church, today only a tiny congregation, was mother or grandmother to 42 churches in the first 17 years after her founding.¹⁶ Well-known churches today, from Saddleback in California to First Baptist Woodstock in Georgia, have planted many churches in the U.S. and globally. Stetzer cited research that indicates how starting a new church actually helps the mother church in many ways.¹⁷

Two approaches that are novel in the American church related to church planting are the multisite and house church movements. While on opposite ends of the spectrum, with multisite utilized by larger churches and house churches focusing on smaller gatherings, both have gained momentum in recent days.

The “multisite church” simply means one church in many locations. Sometimes this means locations nearby where the same pastor preaches at one location and then goes to another. Increasingly this refers to the use of videos of the sermon or a team of preachers, so that the same message is preached at each site, the same DNA is being established at each place (with a team or “site pastor” at each location). The reason most move to a multisite model is to take the gospel to local areas. For example, in Raleigh/Durham the Summit Church has a main campus in the heart of the city, located between Raleigh and Durham. At the time of writing this they had two other locations, one in northern Durham and a new one at the edge of Duke University where numbers of students actually walk to the service.

Many advocates of the approach argue we see this in the first century either in the Jerusalem church (Acts 2, where there were quickly thousands to be taught) and the church in Corinth. Aubrey Malphurs, notable writer and thinker on church planting and other fields, affirms the concept but warns against the danger of letting multisite take the place of church planting.¹⁸ The vision of Summit Church involves both, with a goal of up to 10 sites in the multisite vein, and planting over 20 other independent congregations as well. The both-and approach makes sense in this day.

Critics warn of the obvious dangers of making this a way to promote the ministry of one preacher and of losing the intimacy in worship by the use of video. Advocates counter by arguing video has become such a part of our culture it does not take away from the effectiveness of preaching, and that some voices should be heard clearly. I would argue that using technology to spread the message of a man of God with a word for our times is not that different in our day from the innovation of publishing sermons in Wesley’s day or the building of a great Metropolitan Tabernacle in Spurgeon’s. At one level, the use of technology to get the gospel to more people is a good thing. If a multisite campus makes effective use of local staff and, more importantly, of effective small group ministry, this can be a viable approach.

Stetzer offered a summary of the multisite argument:

Stetzer warned that the multisite approach could simply be another version of attractional evangelism that has some effectiveness but may end up adding to the consumer culture already too popular in our churches. He offers an evaluation at three levels. First, Pastoral Responsibility:  “Despite a church’s best intentions at new sites, sometimes certain pastoral duties get lost: scriptural assignments such as praying over the sick (Jas 5:14), watching over those placed in your care (1 Pet 5:1), discipline (1 Cor 5), and breaking bread with the beloved (Acts 2:42). I know that those duties are supposed to be the job of the campus pastor, but we also know it often does not happen.” Second, Christian Community:  “Connected to pastoral ministry is the community of faith itself. The church is not merely a gathering, but a united people who work together for the glory of God and the good of their neighbors,” he warned. “If you are going multi-site, I hope it keeps you up at night, wrestling with ways to build community in a system that can easily discourage it.” I have seen such churches approach this issue with an excellent small-group system. Finally, Reproducing New Teachers: “Perhaps my biggest concern is that the multi-site paradigm is that, without intentionality, it will limit reproduction. Let’s face it— it’s easier to create another extension site than it is to create another Andy Stanley.”²⁰ Stetzer noted he is not opposed to the multisite model, nor am I. But time will tell whether this model truly becomes an entrenched, effective method or a passing approach.

House churches have existed since the New Testament. They have flourished in other cultures globally and have been of particular effectiveness in countries closed to the gospel. But house churches in the West have begun to grow as well. J. D. Payne in his recent work Missional House Churches: Reaching Our Communities with the Gospel ²¹ studied 33 house churches in the United States and found they were quite effective both in reaching the lost and in planting other churches. In an article for the Lausanne World Pulse Payne offered five conclusions from his groundbreaking study. First, simple expressions of church life can help penetrate certain sectors of the West with the gospel. Second, biblical ecclesiology and not necessarily Western customs regarding church will guide any effective church multiplication movement brought about by house churches. Third, these churches can teach all churches in the West about evangelism, assimilation, and leadership development. Fourth, they can teach us much about missions and ministry. Many of the churches studied gave between 80 and 90 percent of their budgets to missions and benevolence. Finally, with a proper attitude by house-church leaders, growth of house churches can play a vital role in reaching the West. Payne concluded his article with the salient question: “Will such churches be missional house churches?”²²

Ed Stetzer listed five marks of a church planter for today: missional, incarnational, theological, ecclesiological, and spiritual. I appreciate these categories as they touch on all the critical factors in our time. “Establishing a missional church means that you plant a church that’s part of the culture you’re seeking to reach,” Stetzer stated, adding, “The goal of church planting is to reach people.”²³ “Missional” refers to the posture the church planter takes and the DNA he seeks for his church to have. “Incarnational” more or less describes what happens as the church seeks to be missional. As Jesus came to live among us, we seek to live among others. We as the body of Christ live among people in society, not isolated from them. “But,” Stetzer said, “we’re changed, transformed; and because of that, we seek to change and transform.”²⁴

Church planters need a healthy theology: “Some people are, in the name of missional thinking, abandoning basic theological messages. . . . Bible-based theology is the foundation for a successful church plant.”²⁵ Church planters and their plants must be ecclesiological, for the goal is to form biblical, local churches that can transform the culture. Finally (and in my view too often overlooked), church planters much be spiritual. Without the Holy Spirit the work of God will fail. I would add that church planters need accountability—to a mother church, a denomination, or a network. And, church planters need encouragement from those same groups.

Bob Roberts has led his church to plant new churches all over the world. He knows well the calling of the church planter:

Among the many characteristics required of church planters, Roberts observed key components including a commitment to and ability in personal evangelism, including a capacity for apologetics and an understanding of how to apply the gospel in emerging cultures. Church planting may not be the same as meeting regularly with hard-nosed deacons in a traditional church, but it is every bit as difficult, only in different ways. Searcy and Thomas remind the married minister that a call to church planting will be confirmed in the spouse as well. However, they wisely advise three principles: (1) the timing of the husband’s call may not match the timing of the spouse’s call; (2) the intensity of the call may not be the same for both of you; (3) the spouse must be fully heard, involved, and committed to the task.²⁷

Ed Stetzer has conducted extensive research on recent church-planting work. He offers a summary of some of the best practices in recent church-planting efforts.

Statistics tell us that church plants are effective evangelistic tools. New churches grow faster and baptize more people than established churches. (In 2007 it took more than 47 Southern Baptists to baptize a single person.²⁸ Yet, new SBC churches needed fewer than 7 to reach one person.²⁹)

Planting new churches is one of the most effective methods in reaching the lost.

Church planting is growing in influence and in focus. During the past 20 years we have witnessed a renaissance of church-planting interest, knowledge, and excitement. That has led to new systems and approaches to planting churches that effectively reach the lost. In this brief chapter, we will look at a few of those systems and approaches that are increasing church-planting effectiveness, including church- planting systems, teams, high membership standards, and perseverance.

1. B. Easum, Unfreezing Moves: Following Jesus into the Mission Field (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 31. Italics added.

2. See A. L. Reid, Radically Unchurched: Who They Are and How to Reach Them (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2002).

3. B. Roberts, The Multiplying Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 47.

4. E. Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville: B&H, 2006), 16.

5. Quotes under the three headings of objections that follow are from Tim Keller, “Why Plant Churches in the City,” http://download.redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/Why_Plant_

Churches-Keller.pdf, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, February 2002 (accessed August 25, 2008).

6. C. S. Lewis, cited in A. Hirsch, Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), 55.

7. Keller, “Why Plant Churches in the City.”

8.Roberts, Multiplying Church, 72.

9. “Are There Enough Churches?” On Mission, May-June 1999, 11. See T. Clegg and W. Bird, Lost in America: How You and Your Church Can Impact the World Next Door (Loveland, CO: Group Publishers, 2001), 30.

10. D. Garrison, Church Planting Movements: How God Is Redeeming a Lost World (Midlothian, VA: WIGTake Resources, 2004), 21.

11. The reader is highly encouraged to examine chapter 4 of Stetzer’s book, which I am only summarizing.

12.Roberts, Multiplying Church, 17.

13. N. Searcy and K. Thomas, Launch (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2006), 19.

14. J. Rainey, Planting Churches in the Real World (Missional Press, 2008), 16–18.

15. http://jdgreear.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/06/being-young-and-southern-baptist-ed-stetzer-paige-patterson-etc.html (accessed September 25, 2008).

16. http://www.siteone.com/religion/baptist/baptistpage/distinctives/church/Stearns.pdf (accessed September 25, 2008).

17.Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches, 80.

18. http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/2008/06/malphurs-and-multisite-churches.html (accessed October 10, 2008).

19. http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/2008/06/questions-for-mcchurch.html (accessed October 9, 2008).

20. Ibid.

21. J. D. Payne, Missional House Churches: Reaching Our Communities with the Gospel (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster, 2008).

22. http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/themedarticles.php/990/08–2008?pg=2 (accessed October 20, 2008).

23.Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches, 1. Italics added.

24. Ibid., 2.

25. Ibid.

26.Roberts, Multiplying Church, 97.

27.Searcy and Thomas, Launch, 38–40.

28. http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008–04–25-baptists-decline_N.htm

29. E. Stetzer and P. Conner, “Church Planting Survivability and Health Study,” Center for Missional Research, North American Mission Board, 2007, page 5. Note: Dividing the average baptism rate for new churches by the average size of those churches.

Paradigm	Starts churches, raises up leaders from the harvest, moves to new church
Biblical Model	Paul
Historic/Modern Example	Methodist circuit rider, house church movement
Principles	Planter starts church and moves on Planter comes out of the church and returns Pastor may/may not be classically educated New churches provide core for additional churches

Paradigm	Starts a church, acts as “church planter” for a short time, and remains long term to pastor the new church
Biblical Model	Peter and the Jerusalem church
Historic/Modern Example	Charles Spurgeon, Rick Warren
Principles	Planter starts and pastors the church long term Pastor often moves from another location Pastor often classically educated Ideally, new church sponsors new congregations

Paradigm	A group of church planters relocates into an area to start a church. Often the team has a senior pastor.
Biblical Model	Paul (at times)
Historic/Modern Example	Missionaries at Iona, team church plants
Principles	A team relocates to plant a new church (sometimes relocation is not necessary) Church planting vision often comes from one key member of the team Good teams have a gift mix