Denominations and Church Planting
I like your comments, Mike. More than that, I like the fact that you led your church to plant another church. I, perhaps naively, don't tend to think about working with denominations to plant churches. I think of cooperating with other churches to plant churches.
The church I serve is a member of a local association of Southern Baptist Churches in the Atlanta area. It is a small association of roughly forty churches. It has been traditionally led by an associational missionary. This association is revising its charter to focus on three things: church planting, church vitalization, and church and community ministries. The charter calls for three "teams" consisting of representatives from area churches to suggest how to accomplish goals in these areas.
I am hoping that there will be enough unity on the church planting team in this local association to meet together and strategize, asking questions such as:
1) What church plants currently are in need and worthy of support? Should we do more to help them?
2) Where, locally or nationally is a church plant needed and what can we do to provide support?
3) Are there men in our congregations who are interested in church planting and what can we do to assist in training and/or placing them?
These are all questions that I want to be asked at the church level, too. However, since we can do more together than we can alone, I want to cooperate with other churches to plant churches.
Specifically, I want to cooperate with other churches that share a vision not only for church planting but that share a vision for how to church plant. Part of the process involves helping to build like-mindedness within my local association. It's a start.
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