Theopedia

Church planting

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

— Matthew 16:18 (ESV)

Definition

Church planting is the deliberate work of gathering a new, formally organized local congregation among people not already gathered into one, as distinct from evangelism aimed only at individual conversion. Evangelism is often where a plant begins, but its goal is the congregation itself: a body gathered for worship and discipleship, eventually able to be entrusted to its own elders, not simply a growing number of converts.1

Confessional Witness

The 1689 Second London Baptist Confession has no chapter addressing church planting as such; it speaks throughout to congregations already gathered, not to the missionary work of establishing new ones. It does ground every “particular society, or church” in Christ’s own act of calling out a people and commanding them “to walk together… for their mutual edification, and the due performance of that public worship, which he requireth of them in the world.”2 That is the same confessional ground a newly planted congregation itself stands on once gathered, even though the confession does not address the work of planting one.

Biblical Basis

Christ’s own promise undergirds the whole practice: “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Because Christ himself has guaranteed the local church’s permanence, a plant that aims at gathering a congregation, not merely at broadcasting a message, is investing in the one institution he has promised to preserve.1

The pattern itself begins at Antioch. While the church there was worshiping and fasting, “the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off” (Acts 13:2-3). A local congregation, prompted by the Spirit, commissioned and sent out the missionaries who would found the churches of Galatia.3

Paul and Barnabas’ return to those same churches shows planting as a two-stage work, not a single event. Having preached the gospel and made disciples, they went back “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith,” and only then, “when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed” (Acts 14:21-23). A plant is not finished at conversion; it is finished once a congregation has its own qualified leadership. “As wise, Spirit-led, church-planting missionaries, Paul and Barnabas chose the elder structure of government and appointed a body of qualified elders to shepherd each new church.”4 Paul later gave Titus the same charge for the churches of Crete: “Appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (Titus 1:5).

Paul described his own missionary ambition the same way: “I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation” (Rom. 15:20), an ambition Calvin took as defining the apostolic task itself: Paul “had not built on another man’s foundation, but planted churches where the name of his Lord was unheard.”5 Because a plant is a foundation others will build on for years afterward, Paul warned that the quality of that founding work itself will be tested by fire and disclosed on the last day (1 Cor. 3:12-13).

Historical Development

Calvin’s exposition of the five ministry offices Paul names in Ephesians 4:11 (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers) draws a line historic Reformed theology has followed since. The first three “were not instituted in the Church to be perpetual, but only to endure so long as churches were to be formed where none previously existed,” while pastors and teachers are the office “with whom the Church never can dispense.”5 Of the founding office itself, Calvin wrote that the apostles “were sent forth to bring back the world from its revolt to the true obedience of God, and everywhere establish his kingdom by the preaching of the Gospel; or, if you choose, they were like the first architects of the Church, to lay its foundations throughout the world.”5 On this reading, church planting continues a function the New Testament treats as extraordinary rather than the church’s settled, ordinary state: a sent missionary founds a congregation, but its own elders, not the missionary, are meant to govern it once planted.

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Jamie Dunlop, Budgeting for a Healthy Church: Aligning Finances with Biblical Priorities for Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019), chap. 6, “Missions and Outreach: Becoming a Discriminating Investor,” 103-120. ↩ ↩2

  2. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 26, “Of the Church,” para. 5. ↩

  3. Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: Restoring the Eldership to Its Rightful Place in the Local Church, 4th ed. (Littleton, CO: Lewis and Roth Publishers, 2017), chap. 15, “1 Timothy 3:10-Qualifications Demand Examination; 1 Timothy 4:14-The Laying on of Hands by the Elders,” 159-166. ↩

  4. Strauch, Biblical Eldership, chap. 7, “Acts 14:23-Appointing Elders in Every Church,” 89-96. ↩

  5. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-1846), book 4, chap. 3, sec. 4, 315-326. ↩ ↩2 ↩3