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The following is an excerpt from "Good to Great Church Planting: Accelerating Growth and Effectiveness in Church Planting"--a concept paper from Leadership Network’s European Church Planting Network.
Leaders of the Antioch Movement in the Ukraine still remember the day denominational leaders in that country decided to trade their independent church-planting efforts for a united national plan.
It was the first time since the fall of Communism ushered in religious freedom in the Ukraine that religious leaders had banded together for the purpose of widespread church multiplication.
"We tried to help churches understand that it is our country and we are responsible for it; it is our people and our churches who need to
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deliver and give birth to other churches," says Victor Kulbich, who helped train church planters in the country. "And it is our responsibility to bring the Gospel to each man, woman and child and plant the churches. It is a huge vision and we need God’s help."
The culmination of the collaborative work of the Antioch Movement was when Baptist, Pentecostal and independent church leaders came together to sign a historic plan to plant 28,000 churches across the Ukraine in their lifetime.
"Even today, they have pictures on their walls of the day they signed the document," says Chad Smith of the Antioch Movement. "They had never sat together at the table before--this was the first point of seeing a movement in this nation."
This church planting network illustrates one of four strategic stages that a group of churches and networks have deployed the past few years to fuel church planting movements across Europe. Since 2007, when Leadership Network’s European Church Planting initiative was launched, participating churches have strategically planted more than 340 churches and missional communities.
The following four strategic stages have been observed in Europe’s blossoming church planting movement. They could also translate into church-planting and church growth efforts in North America:
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Finding an outward focus |
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Implementing vision |
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Building momentum |
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Generating national and international influence |
Outward Focus
Finding an outward focus was instrumental in the Antioch Movement, according to Victor Kulbich. "It was a revolutionary thought that the main role of the church is to give birth to daughter churches," Victor says.
Implementing Vision
The Message Trust in the United Kingdom (www.message.org.uk) focuses on reaching youth from some of the most deprived parts of Manchester. When the group realized that young people who were coming to faith didn’t fit into the traditional model of church, it had to alter its vision to meet the needs of the community.
The result was the creation of the Eden Project (www.eden-network.org), which partners with local churches throughout the city by physically moving Eden workers into the community sharing both their lives and the gospel as they create new churches. There are now 10 Eden plants in Manchester, with a plan to partner with other organizations in other cities around the UK.
"We did four plants in the first four years working in partnership with others--we weren’t necessarily sitting and thinking that we were going to do this, but we got moving and gathered momentum," says executive director Matt Wilson.
Building Momentum
Saint Thomas Philadelphia Church UK (www.stthomaschurch.org.uk), led by Paul Maconochie, has worked hard to build momentum for growing missional communities. Steps have included getting the right people on the leadership team, understanding who they are and what they are about, and maintaining a culture of discipline.
To get the right people in the right positions, Maconochie replaced all but one member of his entire senior team over the last 3½ years. They strategically hired staff who would no longer be responsible for doing each aspect of teaching and pastoral care, but would train and resource community leaders to use their spiritual gifts to serve each other.
Since making these moves to generate more momentum in their communities, the church’s youth group has more than quadrupled with about 450 now attending.
Generating State, National and International Influence
Saint Andrews Chorleywood in the UK began hosting conferences on church planting, because they were overwhelmed by the number of churches approaching them for strategic help in church planting.
In order to keep up with the requests, they recognized the need to decentralize training, and utilize technology to accelerate growth and learning. The result was the creation of a learning community to help other churches share best practices and learn not just from St. Andrews, but from each other.
The group’s influence is even extending internationally--a church plant in Brazil connected to Saint Andrews’ deployment model has just launched four "mission-shaped" communities.
"The idea of giving mission-shaped community leaders that level of responsibility and ownership is new in Brazil," said Andrew Williams of St. Andrews. "By raising up new leaders to lead missional communities, they have released the potential of significantly more growth. In simple terms there is only so much growth that will arise around a single pulpit."
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