Church Planting
Kirsty and I are thinking about planting a church. The reason being not that we are eager to plant a church and are looking for somewhere to plant it; rather, quite the opposite, we live in a town where there is a great need of a decent church.
I haven’t done any proper demographic research here as yet (that will come a little later); but it seems that this place is full of non-Christians and no one is preaching the gospel to them. In our town there is a Methodist-URC church but, I think, it’s a bit liberal and there’s a fundamentalist church which is stuck in a time-warp somewhere in 1904 (when the last revival happened). They are Christians but have no concern for reaching or being relevant to the people of the community. Although the gospel is preached, there is no concern for bringing people into the building to listen to it.
More worringly, there is a Kingdom Hall down the road which seems to be busier, more vibrant and better attended than anywhere else on a Sunday morning. It was only the JWs who have made any cold-contact with us (via door-knocking); and it was only the JWs who made any effort to bring people in over Easter (they did flyering).
That’s a quick sketch of where I live. It seems there are two options.
- convince the fundamentalists to change their ways and start doing some evangelism and be more relevant. This is what we are currently trying to do – but we’re not getting far and we are getting opposition
- plant a church – this is our ‘backup plan’
