Zambia Hunt

Developing a strong and healthy Church in Africa requires accomplishing three major tasks: Initial evangelism must lead to planting new churches. Christians must be nurtured to maturity within these churches. Leaders must be Identified and trained to evangelize, plant other churches, pastor and shepherd the community of believers, and train other leaders. 

The theological foundations and the strategic implementation of the task (mission) directly affect whether the church will grow and mature. Great theology, but poor practice and unclear vision will lead to failure. You can have great theology and no strategy to deliver that truth, and you will not have a healthy church. Sound doctrine alone will not necessarily grow a healthy, reproducing church. The ecclesiastical landscape is filled with churches that may be doctrinally accurate, but they are dead. You may also have all the strategies in the world and still not have a healthy church because of wrong doctrine (I Co. 3:10-15). You must practice the latter without ignoring the former.

An important strategy for nurturing a new church is introducing church planting missions DNA into the new church plant from the start. People should know that the expectation is to grow to maturity in order to reproduce. Reflect the priority of church planting missions in the budget from the beginning.

When churches become inward-focused (some are born that way), they spend all their energies and finances expanding the ministry among themselves. This view of church growth focuses on drawing more and more people into a single congregation, which results in more and more resources being consumed to serve and house that congregation rather than being spread out by planting new congregations. This often leads to the death of missionary work. The net result is that resources that could be unleashed for church planting and missions are tied up in facilities and support ministries. There is a great need for evaluation and balance in this area. Local church programs and facilities are scaffolding that supports the building up of the body to take the gospel to the next towns!

Dave Doran hits the nail solidly when he wrote, “As congregations become more ingrown, they become less effective in evangelism and discipleship, resulting in fewer converts, increasing pessimism about being able to give up resources (money, people) for church planting, and growing distance from the culture around it.” 

When missionaries fail to use reproducible strategies for church planting, such as investing in a church building that indigenous people cannot afford to maintain, installing equipment, or developing programs outside the ability of the mature congregation, it sends the message that the local congregation cannot plant churches on their own.