One of the biggest trends in evangelical circles at the moment is the idea of missional church plants. Instead of one large church, create lots of small churches that each individually grow quicker than a larger church because they have a more welcoming culture, a more dynamic culture of evangelism, and innovate more quickly. Examples from the US of tiny church plants to megachurches like Mars Hill have gotten a lot of people very excited by the idea.
I have to say it’s an idea that appeals to me personally. I like the idea of finding things out for myself without too many established structures, and coming from the background of working for an internet start-up in London, I’m interested in how lessons from entreprenurial start-up culture could be applied to the church.
However, it is important to consider how central the ‘missional church plant’ model should be in our tactics for church growth here in the UK. How strong is the evidence that it works? If it worked there, will it work here?
Tony Payne of Matthias Media has some interesting thoughts on how the missional church planting model may be a better solution for church growth in America than in Australia:
I am grossly simplifying, but in most parts of the US, it is far easier to put up your shingle and gather a reasonable crowd than it is in most parts of Australia. The society is just more ‘churched’, with a vastly greater number of vaguely or culturally Christianized people who are willing to come to church if presented with the right package. In this context, starting a new church can be an excellent way to evangelize because you are drawing in unconverted people who are nevertheless quite willing to come to church.
In a more pagan, unchurched country like Australia, there may be many contexts in which ‘getting people to church’ is not the wisest way to evangelize them. Evangelism will happen in the workplace, at the pub, through personal relationships, in the neighbourhood, at school, in the marketplace. In this context, planting a new congregation may well provide a good home-base for reaching out to new people, but how we reach those people will almost certainly require a willingness to think outside our traditional structures and methodologies of ‘getting people to church’.
The question is, what about the UK?
5 responses so far ↓
Andy Geers // July 1, 2009 at 10:45 am |
I suspect that the UK isn’t quite as pagan as Australia! You’d probably get very different results depending on what areas/demographics you targetted too. For instance, I don’t think many young professionals in London would just wander into a new church they found on their street corner, but down in Cornwall we constantly get people coming along for a gander or on various seasonal special occasions like Regatta Sunday
Samuel Bostock // July 1, 2009 at 10:53 am |
Hi Andy, good to have you aboard!
I think that’s a good point, I don’t really know about the differences between the UK and Australia. I probably think of Australia being in better shape than it is because almost the only Australians I hear about are Sydney Anglicans!
The other thought I had was, that the church planting thing worked pretty well in Seattle, one of the most secular cities in America. How does Seattle’s churchedness compare to London’s or Sydney’s?
Samuel Bostock // July 1, 2009 at 1:50 pm |
Well I stumbled across an answer to part of my second question. From the Mars Hill blog:
“Only 3 to 7 percent of the people in the UK attend church, which generally means that their best scenario matches Seattle–one of the least-churched cities in the U.S. and approximately 8 percent Christian”
http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2009/06/22/the-good-word-from-london/
That means that the model that has proven successful in Seattle may well be less relevant in the UK.
Nick Algeo // July 1, 2009 at 8:37 pm |
Hi Sam – interesting reading. Strikes me that the comparison from Tony Payne of new church plants vs evangelism at work, in the pub etc is a false one. They are not alternatives, but complementary. If you start a new culturally relevant church plant it is a great thing to invite your work colleagues / mates from the pub to. However this is only really true if church is the people of God sharing their every day lives with each other, rather than just the place / event we normally call church that happens on a Sunday morning.
Just my thoughts – really hope you’re doing well.
Samuel Bostock // July 3, 2009 at 8:53 am |
Hi Nick, great to have you commenting!
I thought what Tony was implying is that if evangelism happens more in a non-church context in secular societies, then maybe we don’t need to be in such a hurry to focus on lots of small culturally relevant church plants – let’s stick with the advantages of larger established churches.
But as you say, there is lots of overlap. I guess most evangelism involves coming along to a church meeting at some point, so I’m sure there is a benefit to having culturally relevant church plants for people to come to.