Love these thoughts from Steve Davis here:
In some ways the challenges are more daunting in church planting than in the past. On one hand, more and more churches are planted by teams, as it should be when possible. More time is taken to prepare for a church launch in order to constitute a committed core of people who will enhance the sustainability of the ministry. More attention is given to demographic studies in order to better understand the target groups. On the other hand, door-to-door evangelism can no longer be done in many areas. Rental costs have skyrocketed. Team ministry requires more resources to send and sustain a team in place. There are higher expectations by attendees and prospective members in the area of facilities and technology.
Christianity has moved more from the mainstream to the margins of society, particularly in urban areas that have been largely forsaken by fundamental churches. Happily, there is a refreshing call today for Christians to return to the cities from the safety and sameness of their utopian suburbs, to reject mono-cultural homogeneity in order to embrace divinely ordered diversity, to reclaim ground that has been lost to triumphant secularism, and to engage the culture of ideas in urban centers of education and the arts. All this in order to preach Christ and Him crucified in the densely populated, multi-cultural arenas of spiritual warfare and to live as Christians in community in neighborhoods that have been broken by sin and are filled with despair. Churches that will not partner with other churches, that will not invest significantly in supporting church planting teams, and that continue to concentrate on themselves in an exclusionary way will not plant many churches. They will however miss out on many of God’s blessings and fail to accomplish numerous purposes for which God planted their churches in the first place. How refreshing and spiritually delightful it would be to see in our time fundamental churches at the forefront of church planting for God’s glory!
