Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Planting Missional Churches 1

I am also reading a book by Ed Stetzer as collateral reading for my church planting class. The book is a rewrite of an older Stetzer book about planting postmodern churches. I will be doing chapterly reviews on the blog as it is a subject area that I am really interested in knowing about. There's 29 chapters, so this will go on for quite some time!

Chapter one is called the Basics of Church Planting and goes through the underlying reasoning for the promotion of a chruch planting movement in North America. Stetzer writes, "Establishing a missional church means that you plant a church that's a part of the culture you're seeking to reach." (1) The way to do this is by being missional, incarnational, theological, ecclesiological and spiritual (3). I laugh out loud that, according to this short list, you don't even have to be Christian to plant a church!

Objections to church planting (or even missional church progression) are tackled well and general statistics are given. I leave you with this quote:

p.11
"During a recent breakfast conversation with Len Sweet, Len explained to me that recent studies show that nine of ten people who are told by doctors to 'change or die' cannot do so. In other words, they are told to stop smoking, lose weight, or quit drinking in order to survive, and nine out of ten die rather than change. Churches are similar; they often choose their traditions over their future."

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