by Alan Rathbun
If you started following me around, it would not take long until you heard me say,
"Church planting should not be something extra we do. It should be the normal fruit of everything we do."
This is not just a cute little saying to try to entice people to think more about church planting. It's rooted in the simple truth that the gospel is a fruit bearing seed that multiplies. The Apostle Paul wrote,
"In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace." (Colossians 1:6, NIV)
This should not surprise us. Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to yeast that spreads through a whole batch of dough and to a tiny seed that grows into a large tree. That growth was evident in the first church at Jerusalem when 3,000 people received Christ in one day and the church kept growing to include 5,000 men.
Think about this. What if the early church never left Jerusalem? What if the church just kept growing bigger and bigger and expected all believers to gather in Jerusalem to hear the apostles teach the Word of God and experience God's miraculous power?
Actually, you don't need to think too much because that is exactly what happened. Even though Jesus' last words to His disciples before His ascension was that they would receive power from the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth, the first disciples seemed content to stay in Jerusalem and watch the miraculous one city growth of the church. We often miss the simple detail in Acts 5, that people came to Jerusalem from other towns to be healed. The apostles didn't bring the good news and power of Jesus to other towns, people came to Jerusalem from other towns.
Until the persecution in Acts 8, believers had been in awe of the power of the gospel, but they also seemed content to see the church in Jerusalem grow and watch people travel from miles away to hear the good news of Jesus and experience His power. But with new motivation to hit the road, believers scattered and preached the word wherever they went. Acts 8 gives us a brief glimpse of Philip preaching the gospel in Samaria and then Peter and John doing the same.
The rest of the book of Acts is about the multiplication of the gospel to towns all over the Roman empire. Everywhere the gospel multiplied, Paul and others formed churches and appointed elders to lead them. In the case of the gospel multiplying to the island of Crete, Paul gave Titus the responsibility to "put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town. In other words, it's supernaturally normal for the gospel to multiply and multiplication is not complete without the establishment of churches in every town where it multiplies.
I think it's safe to say that the desire for most of us is to stay put and let the gospel grow where we are. We like the momentum and the experience of a growing crowd. We feel God's work as more and more people gather in one place.
But that is not God's desire. The Father sent Jesus, Jesus sent the disciples and we are sent people, too. God's desire is for the gospel and churches to multiply in every town. God's plan is for His people to keep taking the gospel to new places so people can experience the power of the gospel and see the body of Christ in action in their own neighborhood.
We like to think of the Alliance as a deeper life and missions movement, but I think we need to fine tune our perspective. The term "missions" is too vague. It somehow makes us feel that we are doing our part if we grow deep with Jesus and send people across the oceans to preach the gospel.
In reality, from our very beginning, the Alliance has been a church planting movement. We have proved it over and over again around the world. On every continent except Antartica, the Alliance has preached the gospel, made disciples, planted churches and equipped leaders for those churches. How do we know when our work is complete? Our work is considered successful when the churches our workers have planted, start planting churches. Eventually, our workers leave a country altogether when the churches in that country start sending workers to other countries to preach the gospel, make disciples and plant churches.
We have always been a global church planting movement. We have always cared more about sending workers to new places than seating more and more believers in the same place. Let's pray that this movement recaptures the hearts of our people in every church in Eastern PA. Let's pray that church planting does not continue as something extra we do, but that it becomes the normal fruit of everything we all do.