19. Why Church Planting? (MICN Missiology Series by Andrew Lupton)

If you’re like I was early in my international church pastoring call, any external pushes toward church planting were met with eye rolls. “How could we even think about multiplying when our own church is so in flux?” I thought stability was the name of the game in a highly mobile church setting. “Once this church is stable, then we can think about multiplication.” I was wrong. 

Stability is not the goal of our international churches. In terms of the organizational lifecycle, stability is the beginning of the end. Entrepreneurs grow restless, are perhaps deemed as threats to the stabilized institution, and are eventually squeezed out. Your church’s dreamers are replaced by bureaucrats to maintain. A once vibrant movement gradually morphs into a lifeless monument. We’ve all seen it happen. So how do we protect our churches from becoming monuments to their former, vibrant selves? 

In Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, Tim Keller describes healthy churches as organized organisms which successfully navigate the tension between being institutions and movements.¹ The difference between institutions and movements is captured in the table below. Keller helpfully modifies Hugh Heclo’s definition of institutions by defining them as entities that “promote stable patterns of behavior through rules and policies that change slowly, thereby limiting and shaping people’s choices and practices.”² Movements, on the other hand, are more dynamic. Movements are driven by individual preferences and bring forth the future through a compelling and shared vision, a culture of sacrificial commitment and intrinsic rewards, flexibility toward outsiders, and an inside-out growth that is in sync with the development of ideas and leaders from within.³  

At first glance, the cross cultural mission of God seems best suited for movements rather than institution.  The choice is simple, always aim for movements, right? This, Keller points out, is a romanticized oversimplification because all movements eventually stabilize toward an institution. Otherwise, the unified vision of the movement is too fluid. Without this engine, the movement stalls. Thus, healthy churches will live in the space between movement and institution, adapting the best institutional characteristics to maintain what Keller calls movement dynamics.⁴

Churches are both movements and institutions. Keller notes that the inevitable pull toward institutionalization over time demands intentionality to create movement dynamics so that the organization stays an organism. How do church leaders keep the organization alive? Frequent, intentional renewal is Keller’s response. ⁵ 

In many ways, an international church has this sort of renewal built into its DNA. Its congregants constantly come and go, at least those I’ve identified earlier who are Traditional Expats, the Young and the Restless, and the Hidden Immigrants. This turnover means that even if the international church stays the same size, it serves two-and-a-half times its number of congregants in the space of only six years. In that space of time, its elders, deacons, and ministry leaders have experienced proportional turnover. If this international church doesn’t renew, it doesn’t survive. Thus, movement dynamics naturally occur within the international church by its ongoing ministry to new congregants. Similarly, movement dynamics naturally occur through the international church by its ongoing sending of maturing congregants to the four corners of the world. In this way, international churches are Keller’s definition of an organized organism exhibiting, “movement dynamics not only inside itself but also beyond itself” (emphasis his). 

But the most natural way for a church to exhibit movement dynamics beyond itself is through church planting. Keller argues effectively that a core component to the identity of a church is “natural and customary” involvement in church planting. Ministry according to the book of Acts is often described as Bible teaching, evangelism, fellowship, discipleship, and worship. Keller says that to ignore  that these ministry activities were taking place under the umbrella of church planting is what he calls “dubious, tacit cessationism.”⁶ I fear international churches are guilty of such a warped view of ministry and identity as Christ’s church because of their lack of involvement in church planting. 

A commitment to church planting is one of the best was for us to nurture the health of our international churches over the long haul. What would it be like for you and your leaders to commit to church planting? Could you strive for both the internal and external movement dynamics of making disciples among the parade of people God gathers within your walls and though the external movement dynamics of church planting nationally or internationally? 

I suspect a commitment like that would be all the more enticing as mission sending organizations and churches consider investing in the international church. Tune in next week as we discuss a few more reasons why the international church is a strategic investment for partner organizations. 

Andrew Lupton

¹ Keller, Timothy, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City, p. 352.

² Ibid., p. 328. 

³ Ibid., pp. 339-341.

⁴ Ibid., p. 342.

⁵ Ibid., p. 351

⁶ Ibid., p. 355.