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what is church planting and why does it matter?

% child population in Sunday School UK, 1900 2000

% child population in Sunday school UK, 1900 2000

60

60

55

50

50

40

40

35

30

30

20

20

14

% of children attending

10

10

6

4

0

0

1900

1940

1970

1990

2000

Source: UK Christian Handbook, Religious Trends No. 2, 2000/2001

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strategies will evolve against the backdrop of very small numbers of children

and young people who are currently involved with our churches. Similarly,

these initiatives will not touch the majority of the adult population who have

had little or no previous connection with church.

The missionary situation faced by the Church has changed. Inviting people

back to church as we currently know it may be an effective mission strategy

for reaching up to (perhaps) one third of the population who are de 

churched. But it is misconceived to assume that this represents a coherent

mission approach for the majority of the population for whom church as 

we know it is peripheral, obscure, confusing or irrelevant.

In this context both fresh expressions of church and church planting offer

ways forward. The change is to an outward focus: from a `come to us'

approach to a `we will go to you' attitude, embodying the gospel where

people are, rather than embodying it where we are, and in ways we prefer.

Church planting is a helpful reminder that an essential aspect of `church' 

is its missionary nature   a fresh movement of the Spirit, in prayer, outgoing

love and evangelism in obedience to our Lord's command.

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Best church

planting and most fresh expressions of church reassert the identity of the

Church as mission, and both are helping us to rediscover our apostolic

identity. If the Church is not missionary, it has denied itself and its calling,

for it has departed from the very nature of God.

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