Twenty Ways to Plant Churches in north America – Part 2
In part 1 of this article, Dr. Phil Douglass began an overview of 20 different models for church planting, based on his own extensive experience as a planter, mentor to planters, and professor of church planting. In part 2 below, he presents several more church planting models to inspire and encourage more church planting in the PCA and beyond. To find out more about how Covenant is preparing a new generation of church planters, check out our Church Planting Track and our Church Planting Scholarship, as well as a recent grant we received from the Association of Theological Schools for the purpose of further equipping church planters.
The eleventh method of church planting occurred at the end of the school year. One of the students, who helped us start the previous church and took church planting and growth courses with me at Covenant Seminary, was soon to graduate and wanted to plant a church. Because he and his wife took part in our church planting effort, they were ahead of other seminary graduates in preparation for this ministry. As a result, we were able to work with the Mission to North America Committee in the Washington, DC, area to provide an internship and the finances for them to plant in that region. Several years later, this church planter was able to supply 40 people who were eager to help another church planter start a church south of the original location. This daughter church grew to 260 people and has planted several daughter churches of its own in Southern Maryland.
We attempted the twelfth method of church planting, which unfortunately did not succeed as well as we had hoped, when we invited ten volunteer seminary couples to act as a core group to plant our second church in St. Louis. One reason this plant did not grow as hoped was that families who came to visit the church could not easily identify with the seminary families. Also, during exam periods and school vacations, the students were emotionally or physically absent due to heavy demands on their time and energy. This method was not a total failure, however—future efforts bore more fruit when we carefully chose a maximum of three or four seminary families to join a larger group of volunteers.
The thirteenth method by which we have planted churches occurred during my third year at the Seminary. I was finishing my time at the previous church when I received a visit from the pastor and lay leader from one of our established churches that had started 45 years before. Because of a series of difficult problems in the church, it had dwindled down to five families and these two leaders had come seeking advice. The church had never owned a building but had just sold some land, so it had the finances to conduct significant ministry. After studying the various choices, I proposed that we close the existing church and that I act as the organizing pastor to plant a new church. The present pastor would serve as my Associate and the five families would be the core group. All the people agreed to the plan, so three months later we began a telemarketing program, calling 15,000 homes in the area. As a result, we planted a church which averaged 110 in attendance from the first day and later averaged 175 people in worship attendance. Perhaps, some of our small struggling churches should consider this model as a strategy.
The fourteenth example occurred when one of our larger St. Louis churches outgrew its building by averaging 550 people in attendance each Sunday. The church’s township would not allow the expansion of their building, so they bought a large piece of land in a rapidly growing area twelve miles away and made plans to put up a new facility. However, 35% of the members remained at the old location and 65% began meeting in a high school near the new site. Both churches grew significantly and eventually had a combined Sunday attendance of 1400 people. One of the most fruitful means of church planting and growth is for a church to initiate a “friendly split” and begin meeting in two different locations.
One of the largest of our St. Louis churches demonstrated the fifteenth model when it designated $35,000 each year in its mission budget to help plant a church somewhere in North America. As a result of this plan, a “flagship” church started in Columbus, Ohio, and soon averaged 400 people in attendance each Sunday; it has planted other daughter churches in their area. Since then, this St. Louis church has sponsored several church plants in other parts of North America. This model shows the impact when a large church determines that a major part its mission is planting churches in other parts of the continent.
The sixteenth model developed several years ago when an elder in one of our St. Louis churches became enthusiastic about the fruitful church planting efforts in our region. When he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, he found that the PCA had no churches in that region. First, he pledged to provide a major portion of the start-up costs for a church plant. Second, he immediately began a Bible study group that became the core of the new church. Mission to North America’s Church Planting Assessment Center identified an ideal church planter and soon worship services began. This model shows how a motivated layman can become the prime mover in planting a church.
Because Dr. Paul Kooistra, then president of Covenant Seminary, wanted to see churches planted in the Midwest through the leadership of our graduates, the seventeenth model developed in 1989. During that year he raised most of the funds necessary to provide me with a full-time associate for church planting, and together we developed a Midwest strategy. This man subsequently spent much of his time traveling the 15 states of the Midwest serving as a catalyst with the MNA Committees of the presbyteries. We then conducted several vision-setting and training seminars for the church planting leaders of the Midwest, so a goal was established to plant many more churches in the region. We began with 98 churches in 1989 and now have an additional 102 churches. This method of creating the position of Coordinator for Church Planting for a region or network of churches has proven fruitful in the numbers of churches planted, not only in the Midwest but around the continent.
The eighteenth model involves our efforts to develop within Covenant Seminary a Church Planting, Growth, and Renewal Concentration. This more recently evolved into what we now call the Church Planting Track. A student can take several courses in church planting, growth, and renewal and then do an internship that trains him in outreach and assimilation ministries. This program is bearing much fruit as growing numbers of Covenant Seminary MDiv graduates are planting PCA churches in North America, with many others planting overseas with Mission to the World. According to records maintained by the PCA, of the 1,080 Covenant Seminary graduates currently serving as ordained pastors in the denomination, 241 (22.3%) have planted one or more PCA churches. Thus, this model proves the effectiveness of seminary education in preparing men to plant churches.
The nineteenth model: An influential layman in our Presbytery believed the Lord wanted us to plant a church in the city of St. Louis that focused on mercy and justice ministries. So he contacted other churches around the nation that had developed similar models. As a result, he recruited a pastor to plant in an area of St. Louis that was half white and half black in population. That church now has around 600 people in worship on Sunday mornings with 200 more meeting for worship at a location on the south side of the city. This is another model of the essential part that visionary Ruling Elders have in church planting.
The twentieth model: One of our St. Louis pastors, who is now with the Lord, led to Christ a young man back in 1992 during the first couple of months of his church plant. He discipled this man, instructed and modeled for him how to conduct evangelism, encouraged him in leadership so that he became an ordained Ruling Elder at the church, and sent him to Covenant Seminary for his MDiv. About 70 people from the mother church then went with this graduate to plant a church a few miles south in Fenton, Missouri. This model shows the power of evangelism and discipleship in developing the next generation of church planters.
Church planting is the most effective means to increase giving to missions of all sorts. For example, the 13 Washington, DC, church plants that I and my team initiated from 1977 to 1986 resulted in 2006 Benevolence Giving of $1,048,788. Even better news is that over the decades since, these churches have continued to give more and more to missions each year.
The most fruitful means of winning the lost to Christ is by the ministry of church planting. In our national PCA church plants conducted over the last seven years, an average of 6.6 professions of faith occurred during a church’s fourth year of existence. It is difficult to discover the number of professions in our established churches on an annual basis, but I estimate it is no more than one-third of that number.
It is my prayer that over the next several decades the PCA will use these twenty methods, plus others we have not yet considered, to plant thousands of Christ-centered biblical and Reformed churches. This movement will serve as an instrument in the hand of God to win North America and the nations to Christ.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Covenant Seminary is working with the PCA’s Mission to North America and other ministries as we aim to recruit, train, and send the next generation of leaders who will plant and grow more biblically sound, confessionally Reformed churches in the US and across North America. You can help to make this vison a reality by ensuring that our Church Planting Track and Church Planting Scholarship remain strong and vital. How can you do this?
Pray for us and our partners and support us financially.
Refer potential church planting students to us.
Connect us with influencers and others who can have an impact on our efforts.
We value your partnership in our ministry!
