Church Planting is a Crock

So, about two weeks ago I was hatin’ life. There was the usual piece in the local paper about a new church “plant” in Lexington. I could not pin it down, but something about what I was reading made me think that church “planting” (starting new churches) was a trend, a fad, the latest thing to ease the mind of the mainline denominations who know they are dying and dying fast, in a loud and grotesque train-wreck sort of way.

I was sick to my stomach. Seriously. I thought I was going to puke. I had a sinking feeling that maybe I had been sold a bill of goods on this whole church planting thing. Maybe it is a trend. A fad. I put a lot of money and way more personal capital into The Rock’s Church plant downtown, Embrace United Methodist Church. I thought I had a sober perspective. Who could doubt that church planting was the way? Has it not always been the way?

I was stressing out for a few days and then I got my wits about me. “It was just an article that hit you wrong, kid” is what I told myself.

Enter Rosario, the pastor and planter of Embrace, the man of whom I proudly say, “You can’t train Rambo and expect him not to kill.” We’re sitting at Frisch’s, and he says, “what if church planting is a crock?”

Now look, church planting is the hardest kind of evangelism there is. The most successful, but the hardest. Especially the way Rosario does it—going to the most secularized places. I mean, he could just move to the burbs, throw up a building from the General Steel Co and raid a few churches for members. Nope. Boozers, fornicators and atheists. That’s his target. And so it is really easy to get bummed as day in and day out you get pummeled.

So I said to Roz, “I am so glad to hear you say that.” We breathed a sigh of relief, having confessed to some deep dark secret sin. [You can tell the Bishop me and Roz had this conversation; we’re pretty transparent dudes. We wear our gospels on our sleeves.]

Here’s why we’re ok talking like this: it leads us deeper into mission. It’s gut-level talk about our love for bringing people to Christ. Not to church, to Christ. The reason we were bummed was because we were worried that maybe we’re just stupid and naïve. We know that we are the kinds of pastors you seal in glass, break only in case of rampant pagan revelry. We’re “big dumb animals” as Roz says. Did we get duped into doing something to save the denomination?

That’s the heart of our depression and worry. The talk in church planting sometimes drifts to: you have to plant so that the denomination keeps growing. For example, in an official United Methodist publication, you read: “Statistics are showing us that we need healthy and existing churches plus new churches in order for the denomination to progress and to grow” (Interpreter, March/April 2009, p. 15). This is from one of pour most successful church planters. I know what he means, because I too have said it. It IS true—the denomination WILL die without new churches. But we can’t plant churches solely to keep the denomination alive. It’s not just that that’s not much of a reason, it’s that it is doomed to fail.

Pretty soon you’re right back where the United Methodist Church is today—more interested in supporting an institution than being a witness for Jesus Christ. When being a witness for Jesus is unpopular, we back down. People might leave. There might be less money. We have a church institution that, in spite of well-meaning and faithful people, does what all institutions tend to: it serves itself. The survival of the institutionalized forms is more important than the mission.

Church planting has to be about the mission: bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ.

Roz and I were wondering if we’re at cross purposes with the church planting movement. Big dumb animals that we are, we went to work for Jesus. We sat back and took a deep breath and we’re back, more determined than ever that this about Jesus and His people. In that same Interpreter issue is what we’re trying to do: “look for those rare Annual Conferences [a regional administrative division of Methodism]… where the church is still growing. In every case all of their growth is accounted for by the growth in their newest churches…. This isn’t about church institutional survival. It’s about the Great Commission. It’s about sharing Christ with the next generation” (p. 13)