When is a Church Plant Now a Fully Established Church?
September 7, 2023
As mentioned in previous articles, a developing church may be in a situation in which a core group have been meeting or intends to begin meeting together long before they’ve been able to either partner with a like-minded church in a neighboring city or find a potential founding pastor.
So in this situation, how should a core group prepare for the formation of their church down the road? Let me suggest three specific focal points for the core group:
The gathering of God’s people is first and foremost an act of worship. Thus, rather than simply focusing on organization and planning (definitely important), the core group ought to engage in many regular meetings of simply praying together for the Lord’s work among them and using them. Some men in the group can provide simple devotionals or Bible readings and maybe even some worship in song if that is possible. But the group must learn to prioritize worshiping together.
One highly attractive feature to a potential pastor or to a potential partnering church is a core group’s robust commitment to developing their ecclesiology, their understanding of the church. The core group should go through at a vigorous pace important books on the church. Here are seven great places to start:
A little tip: going at the pace of reading a chapter per week will accomplish little. I emphasize the term “robust” as committing to reading and studying several chapters per week to work through these books and learn rapidly.
There are many preparations a core group can make prior to even hearing the vision of a founding pastor:
“Church-Planting Basic Training” is a series of 15 short bullet-point style articles aimed at encouraging Christians in the appropriate situation to consider engaging in a long-term church-planting project.