“I can worship God riding my horse alone in the woods just as well as I can sitting in a room full of people at church,” insisted a deacon at a long established church in a small southern town.
His statement revealed an individualistic view of the Christian faith that is all too common among Southern Baptists.
His pastor replied that while worship can and should happen while riding a horse through the woods, the local church is the only biblically defined, God-ordained, Jesus-headed, and Holy Spirit-organized place for spiritual growth and maturity to happen.
In responding to this man, the pastor also revealed one biblical basis for church planting. In Hebrews 10, the writer calls for the Hebrew Christians to not forsake corporate gathering in light of the value and necessity we have to each other. One key part of that value, the writer tells us, is encouraging or urging one another on to love and good deeds (10:24).
Without the benefit of Christian community, the writer goes on to note, our human tendency is to wander farther from the expressions of the new nature we receive in Christ.
Many have written, preached, and taught about the greater evangelistic fruitfulness common among church plants. Alone, that would be sufficient reason to plant more churches. Yet, the writer of Hebrews reveals that local churches are essential to fulfilling the fundamental mission of believers. That mission is the making of mature followers of Jesus: disciples (Matthew 28:19-20; Colossians 1:28).
In Illinois, we face the enormous challenge of seeing believers mature in Christ-likeness. The mission field that is our state is not just large geographically, it is also inhabited by a wide variety of people. People from all over the world call our state home.
Additionally, every ethnic group in Illinois has generational distinctions among them that are reflected in differing world views, communication styles, and values. While that may be obvious in Chicago, it’s just as true in Hooppole and countless unincorporated rural regions of our state.
Church planting offers us the opportunity to reach the people of Illinois with the gospel. Church planting offers us the opportunity to see a wide variety of peoples won to Christ, but also to grow in Christ-likeness and to mature as disciples in community, as God has designed.
In suburban West Chicago, we have a church plant that is evangelizing and discipling Zomi people who have come to the U.S. as refugees. Having come to these shores from Burma as a result of religious and ethnic persecution, Zomis are hearing and responding to the gospel through the work of a Zomi church planter, Kam Sen.
Kam Sen understands the values, needs, and concerns of his Zomi kinsmen because their experience is his experience. He understands how to communicate biblical truth in ways that connect with them. And he knows how to lead them to maturity as disciples.
In southern Illinois, there are young and middle-aged adults who may not value all the expectations of attire and conduct that may be part of the culture of established churches in their area. They may not know all the theological vocabulary that is sometimes common in churches with a long history. The long, deep, and beneficial relationships among people in older churches can be impenetrable circles to unchurched people.
Planting new churches allows older, established churches to continue fruitful, effective ministries of evangelism and discipleship, while allowing new churches to engage, evangelize, and disciple people who feel excluded by the cultural distinctions of the established church.
Throughout Illinois, we have people groups who do not have ready access to the gospel. They do not have a group of believers with whom they have enough in common to develop relationships of trust and understanding that are essential to hearing the gospel and responding in faith. They do not have a community of believers with enough in common to urge one another on to love and good deeds.
Church planting holds for us the greatest opportunity to see the various peoples in Illinois have the opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel, and to grow as followers of Jesus along with other disciples.
Dennis Conner directs IBSA’s church planting efforts in northeast Illinois.