Church Planting Book

Multiplying Churches:Reaching Today’s Communities Through Church Planting
ed. Stephen Timmis

This is a collection of chapters written by several writers who have experience of church planting. The book is valuable for two things. Firstly, there is a survey of approaches that have been tried in history in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and geograpically in a variety of cultures. Such anecdotal evidence in itself is useful simply because it reminds the reader of the value and power of the gospel, and of the courage others have shown in the process of spreading it. In our established churches we too easily settle back into our comfortable lives and lose the "all or nothing", "do or die" way of thinking about our Great Commission that our forefathers showed.

The second area of value is in examining the principles that must necessarily govern any church planting venture. There often seems to be two extremes: a rigid cloning of an existing large church into a new area, or a completely radical, almost unprincipled, "do anything to get them in" approach. Both of these are challenged. There must be some principles: clarity about the gospel, what the church is, the need for leadership that can teach. These are perhaps predictable. But other areas such as strategy, creativity, team work are included too. These are implicit in the work of the Apostles. Thinking these through may challenge the more rigid approaches.

Not everone will agree with everything in this book, I'm sure. (I didn't!) And clearly more things could be said on various topics that could not be handled in this small book. But what is offered is challenging, encouraging, an easy read, a good starter on the topic and very commendable.