Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century , livre ebook

Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century
Other Books by Aubrey Malphurs
Advanced Strategic Planning
Being Leaders
Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Building Leaders (coauthor)
Church Next (coauthor)
A Contemporary Handbook for Weddings, Funerals, and Other Occasions (coauthor)
Developing a Dynamic Mission for Your Ministry
Developing a Vision for Ministry in the Twenty-first Century
Doing Church
The Dynamics of Church Leadership
Maximizing Your Effectiveness
Ministry Nuts and Bolts
Pouring New Wine into Old Wineskins
Strategy 2000
Values-Driven Leadership
Vision America
Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century
A Comprehensive Guide for New Churches and Those Desiring Renewal
Third Edition
Aubrey Malphurs
2004 by Aubrey Malphurs
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malphurs, Aubrey, Planting growing churches for the 21st century : a comprehensive guide for new churches and those desiring renewal / Aubrey Malphurs.-3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8010-6514-3 (pbk.) 1. Church development, New. I. Title. BV652.24.M35 2004 254p.1-dc22
2004012909
Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
To all of my students who ve caught the vision and taken the risk
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Part 1 The Preparation for Church Planting
1. What Are We Talking About? The Definition of Church Planting
2. Do We Need Another Church? The Reasons for Church Planting
3. How Do You Make Ends Meet? The Funds for Church Planting
4. What You Don t Know Might Hurt You! The Assumptions of Church Planting
Part 2 The Personnel of Church Planting
5. Are You a Church Planter? The Practice and Application of Assessment
6. Leading with Sustained Excellence A Strong Servant-Leadership
Part 3 The Process of Church Planting
7. We Want to Have a Baby The Conception Stage, Part 1
8. We re Going to Have a Baby! The Conception Stage, Part 2
9. Childbirth Classes The Development Stage
10. It s a Baby! The Birth Stage
11. Feed Them and They Grow! The Growth Stage
12. I m No Longer a Kid! The Maturity Stage
13. Let s Have a Baby The Reproduction Stage
Church Planter s Workbook
Appendix A A Well-Mobilized Lay Army
Appendix B A Culturally Relevant Ministry
Appendix C A Holistic, Authentic Worship
Appendix D A Biblical, Culturally Relevant Evangelism
Appendix E A Robust Network of Small Groups
Appendix F Personal Ministry Core Values Audit
Appendix G Understanding Postmodernism
Notes
Foreword
This book invades enemy territory and challenges the strongholds of the adversary. These strongholds don t exist out there. They are the ideas and thoughts that are satanically designed to siphon life and vitality out of the living organism we call the church. These mind-sets inform decisions and determine directions that are often contrary to divine intent and strategy.
It is the nature of a living organism to grow. If it is not growing, something is wrong. The church, a living organism, is not growing in the United States. In fact not a single country has experienced church growth in the past decade. Yet the Lord of the church declared that the gates of hell would not be able to withstand the attack of the church.
Something is wrong. Some thoughts have not been brought into captivity to Christ and his plan for the growth of his church.
Sometimes the roadblock is theological. More often the problem is cultural mind-sets that create invisible barriers to evangelism and church growth. By and large the old wineskins cannot contain the new wine of the Spirit. The letter kills, but the Spirit brings life.
According to Dr. Malphurs, the most effective and efficient way to reach the seeker is to plant new churches and, where possible, bring renewal to existing churches. Whatever route taken, growth is predicated on keeping that living organism healthy, biblically informed, and culturally relevant. Like a pediatrician, the author leads the reader through the church planting process of conception, birth, growth, maturation, and reproduction.
Those with a heart for church planting will find no better treatment of the subject than Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century. We can be thankful for its breadth and depth, for its attention to detail and practicality. For those longing for church renewal the principles delineated in this book could be the key to the revitalization of the existing church. This book will aid church planters in tearing down the strongholds of doubt and misbelief and raising up vital churches prepared for the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Joe Aldrich Former president, Multnomah School of the Bible
Introduction
I must have been daydreaming because I missed my exit off the freeway. It was Sunday morning, and I was on my way to fill a pulpit in a church located in a suburb of affluent north Dallas. The next exit was only a mile farther, so I was not greatly inconvenienced. It would cost me five minutes at the most. Yet that five minutes proved to be interesting and informative. Not far from the exit, I drove past a family-oriented health club. I was amazed at all the cars and vans crowded into the parking lot. The attractive, well-kept facility was packed and it wasn t even 11:00 AM! A few minutes later I arrived at my destination. It was a small, rundown church with an unkempt lawn. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noted that there weren t many cars. I had my choice of parking places.
The last fifty years have proved increasingly difficult for the church in America, whether liberal or evangelical. Things have not progressed as planned. During the first half of the twentieth century, the future looked bright. The people who attended church were those born in the 1910-1930 era, people whom Lyle Schaller describes as the most church-going generation in American history. 1 In general, America was a Judeo-Christian, churched culture. On Sunday mornings, most people were found in their denominationally loyal churches; it was the thing to do. In fact, if people weren t in church on Sunday morning, chances were good that they had stayed home and slept in-behavior that was frowned on. The 1940s and the 1950s were the heyday for the church. If this was any indication of things to come, then the future looked bright. Perhaps the church would win the world for Christ in the twentieth century.
The church situation in the latter half of the century (in particular the 1980s and 1990s) forms a stark contrast to that of the first half. Storm clouds moved in and darkened the bright horizon of American Christianity. Rather than sending missionaries out from America and winning the world for Christ, America itself became a mission field. In 1988 church growth expert Win Arn wrote: Between 80 percent and 85 percent of all churches in America are either plateaued or are declining. Then he added the following information:
America: 240 million population 96 million (40%) have no religious affiliation 73 million (31%) are Christians in name only 169 million (71%) of total U.S. population 2
At around the same period of time, George Gallup published The Unchurched American-10 Years Later. This was a sequel to a similar study that the organization had completed in 1977. In the later work, he indicated that the number of unchurched Americans had increased. He noted:
Trying to analyze the findings of The Unchurched American-10 Years Later is a little like trying to decide whether the glass is half-full or half-empty- there s evidence to support both views.
For those who believe the glass is half-empty, the evidence is that the churches have not made any inroads into attracting the unchurched over the past decade: in 1978, 41 percent of all American adults (18 or older) were unchurched; in 1988, that figure rose to 44 percent. . . .
The same evidence, however, also supports the contention that the glass is half-full. One might maintain that the churches have done well to keep slippage to a minimum in light of the continued high mobility among Americans during the last decade, the distractions of modern life and the apparent growing appeal of non-traditional religious movements. 3
Regardless of whether the glass was viewed as half-empty or half-full, the future looked bleak in terms of reaching unchurched America. Gallup s research indicated that things were moving in the wrong direction. Many churches were plateaued or decreasing in numbers while the ranks of the unchurched were growing. In May 2004 George Barna notes that the number of unchurched adults has nearly doubled since 1991. 4
In Effective Church Leadership , Kennon Callahan summarizes what had taken place in the second half of the twentieth century:
Yet, on all sides, it is self-evident that we are no longer in the churched culture that existed in the late 1940s and the 1950s.
Statistical research, analyses of this culture, and long-range projections all clearly indicate that ours is no longer a churched culture. Study after study and the steady decline of many mainline denominations confirm this fact. We are clearly and decisively entering the mission field of the 1990s. 5
Early in the twenty-first century the situation hasn t changed for the better. Secularism seems to be winning the day, and America is now clearly a post-Christian culture-if i