Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Reproducing Churches

Met with some of the guys from Reproducing churches today. Learned a lot from Jim and the lessons he took away from an unsuccessful year in TN planting a church. Bottom line, he said, "make sure that the people you plant with are on the same page with your vision." Apparently he had been misled as to the vision of the people who wanted him to come and lead them, and when the church began to develop in a way that differed with their preconceived idea, they bolted. It is my guess that this is probably the most common of all reasons for a church to fail. "where there is no vision." or the unwillingness to follow a particular vision, the people perish.

Mark Wieble had some great stuff to share and much of our conversation centered on funding for new churches and how much is too much. It is hard to convey to established churches that they must reproduce, especially when they think that it takes tons of money and people resources to do so. If we waited until we could afford kids, most of us would never get pregnant. (God has a remedy, for humans) In church world, it is a different story, but in the end, a baby church is just as rewarding.

Some Questions to consider...

What if we decided not to fund church plants?
Would we be willing to plant?
Would planters still obey the call of God on their lives?
What are we teaching churches by the way we start them that makes it hard for them to reproduce?
Why are we so afraid to release people to launch?
How many churches could we start if we funded only evangelism?

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