… the number of megachurches who are planting new churches is also rising according to our studies. Megachurches planting or helping to plant other congregations rose from 68% in 2000 to 70% in 2005 to 77% in 2008.Interestingly, those churches with satellite campuses were even more likely to have planted a church; only 16% never did, compared to 26% of those without satellites who never planted another church.
Church plants are, by far, the most effective means of growing the Kingdom by converting the lost. After all, a church plant in the US is much the same as sending a mission team to a foreign country. There are so many similarities that church plants are often overseen by experienced missionaries, applying the lessons they learned in other countries here.
The modern approach to church plants is not what many of us picture. It’s not about peeling 150 members off your existing church and starting a new church somewhere else just like yours. Rather, the approach that’s been shown to work the best is to start with about 15 or 20 people, who go to a part of the country (or subculture within the country) that needs the church. They don’t duplicate your church but, rather, study the culture they are moving to and try to work within the new culture to build an indigenous church.
It’s not about putting a Church of Christ in an area that already has 15 Baptist and Methodist Churches, just so “we’ll” have a presence. It’s about planting God’s church where there is no church.
