What may be the worlds most exciting development does not make the evening
news, but it is creating a stir among evangelical Christians.
Missiologists call it church-planting movements. Basically,
it is indigenous churches multiplying within a people group at a rate that almost
defies belief.
More specifically, it is Bible-believing churches led by local
laypersons, meeting as cell groups or house churches.
What may be the worlds most exciting development does not make the evening
news, but it is creating a stir among evangelical Christians.
Missiologists call it church-planting movements. Basically,
it is indigenous churches multiplying within a people group at a rate that almost
defies belief.
More specifically, it is Bible-believing churches led by local
laypersons, meeting as cell groups or house churches.
It is healthy churches with evangelism and church-starting
in their DNA.
It is churches who count it as joy to win others to Christ,
start other churches and teach others to do the same.
These movements are popping up in places where one would least
expect it -places where missionaries have not been welcome, places where
a Bible is hard to come by, places where believers are likely to face persecution,
the last places many would consider “white unto harvest.”
Take China, home to one-fifth of the worlds people and
to several church-planting movements, largely centered in house-church networks.
Or North Africa, where a Muslim cleric complained that more
than 10,000 Muslims living in the nearby mountains had become Christians.
Or India, where almost 2,000 churches were started among a
people living in a region with several Hindu holy sites.
Or a Latin American nation, where Christians have long been
persecuted, but where the number of Baptist churches grew from 235 in 1990 to
more than 1,500 with some 33,000 believers in 2000.
To many Western Christians, being part of a typical church-planting
movement might feel like walking a tightrope without a net, missions leaders
explain.
“It scares the bejabbers out of people to say theyre
going to start a church, because all they ever did was sing in the choir,”
one International Mission Board regional leader says about new personnel in
his region.
“(But) Its not rocket science to start a church,”
he continues “Its simply people who love Jesus and are committed
to him, following him and getting together to worship. When people learn that,
they have an aha moment, and say, I can do this. ”
Not only can new missionaries start churches, so can new believers
– and it is essential that they do if a church-planting movement is to
happen, International Mission Board Associate Vice President David Garrison
points out.
“God has given new believers everything they need to make
a church,” he says.
A church-planting movement must quickly become indigenous,
but that does not mean Southern Baptists cannot contribute. For instance, they
can introduce the gospel to a new people group, leaders say.
Garrison says he never has seen a church-planting movement
without two elements – massive prayer and massive seed sowing.
Prayer is “the beginning for everything, the glue that
holds everything together, the blood that flows through us,” he says.
Missionary teams are urged to assemble prayer-support networks,
and Southern Baptists are urged to participate in prayerwalks and to become
prayer advocates for specific people groups, population segments and cities.
Garrison says massive seed sowing answers the key question
– “How many of my people will hear the gospel today?”
That is where Southern Baptist missionaries become most creative.
They tell the stories of the Bible to people who cannot read
them. They use volunteers to pass out thousands of “Jesus” films,
Scripture portions and tracts to tourists returning home to restricted-access
countries.
Southern Baptist personnel also partner with local believers,
helping them secure resources for their own seed sowing and introducing ideas
the locals might use to reach their own people.
What they cannot do – without harming a church-planting
movement – is take charge, create dependence or introduce extra-biblical
requirements, such as American-style church buildings.
Garrison has written a basic book as a guide, Entitled, “Church
Planting Movements.” it is in demand by Southern Baptists and other evangelicals
around the world, who have requested permission to reprint it in 27 languages.
Why such a stir?
One strategy coordinator put it this way – “You have
heard that time is money, but I say to you, time is souls.”
Consider the 1.2 billion people in people groups with little
or no access to the gospel.
Consider the many non-Christians among other peoples.
Missionaries alone, starting and nurturing individual churches
to maturity, simply will not get the job done.
Indeed, the task looks impossible.
It is only impossible without God and the church-planting movements
he is blessing, that is.
Those who have been involved in such movements are quick to
say, with a bit of awe, that what they are seeing is the result of the Holy
Spirit at work.
A strategy coordinator in China says he has seen Gods
spirit working among house-church networks that have doubled in size each of
the last two years.
Those networks are led by Christians whose faith and leadership
skills were forged in the persecution of the Cultural Revolution, people who
exhibit a passion for God and for planting churches.
“For them its a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week
ministry,” he says.
Sometimes, God uses training by Southern Baptist workers to
awaken that passion.
For instance, in another region of China, a pastor said he
had been a Christian for 20 years without knowing that he should be starting
other churches – until an International Mission Board strategy coordinator
taught him that it brings great joy to win someone to Christ, greater joy to
start a church and the greatest joy to teach someone else to start a church.
“In the last four months, Ive started 12 new churches,”
the Chinese believer says.
“You know what my vision is?” he adds. “My hope is that every
member of my church will start a church.”