John Piper’s short message on church planting is worth reading. He gives four reasons why we should be involved in church planting. Justin Taylor summarises them as follows:

1. We do not have too many churches today. We have too few.
2. Experience has shown, and the Bible would support, that new churches are one of the most effective means of evangelism.
3. New churches awaken and engage much of the under-used leadership potential of the saints in the older, larger churches.
4. Breaking free from the risk-free comfort of long-standing patterns of church life is a good thing. It’s good for your faith to be tested. It is good to take risks.

John Piper is not just looking for greater numbers of churches. The type of church is vitally important. They must be “God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, missions-mobilizing, justice-pursuing churches”. (Perhaps as a charismatic I would want to sneak in “Spirit-filled” as well!)

It is great to see people like Piper lend their support to church planting initiatives. Another interesting article is this one by Tim Keller. Despite increasing numbers of leaders lending their support to the idea of church planting, there still seems to be in many people’s minds the concept that it is only to be done in exceptional circumstances, if absolutely no other way can be found to accomodate growth.

But existing churches should not feel threatened by the idea of church planting, even if it is to be resourced by key members of their own congregations. There are more than enough unsaved people to go round, as Dan points out with this thought-provoking quote from Bryn Jones: “It is tragic to hear Christians self-congratulatingly referring to their church as numbering over 200 or 300 people without mentioning the fact that this is still one thousandth of the population of their city!”.

May God stir many of his people up to be involved in church planting initiatives throughout the world. And may our existing churches fight to ensure that they remain God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-filled, Bible-saturated, missions-mobilizing, and justice-pursuing.