More Plants?
I hear continuously in our movement at least at the District level that we need to plant more churches. There is a huge push to plant an x amount of churches in an x amount of time. I whole heartedly agree. We do need to plant more churches. Before we plant another church though, I think we need to ask some tough questions, such as, Why do 80% of church plants fail? Why are we closing the doors of more churches than we are opening? What's the condition of the churches we have already planted in the past three or so years? My opinion for whatever it's worth is, we need to be better stewards of the churches we have already planted before we get excited and plant anymore. How does this happen? Believe it or not there is no need to form a committee to find the answer! The solution is quite simple. I think good old fashion communication is a great starting point. Let's do a better job communicating with our new plants. As a district let's follow up on our new plants, let's call the Pastors, let's shoot off an e-mail or two on a regular basis. Let's find out how their family life and mariage is doing. As a District let's make it our goal to connect or reconnect if need be with the few church plants and planters already ministering in our District. What we need is more HEALTHY plants. Lets all do our part in assuring that reality.
If a farmer placed cuttings from his crops in the dirt and never looked in on them again, would they thrive? Probably not and if they did they would probably be scrawny little sickly plants.
We need to take care of those parts of the body that have been transplanted to grow a new body.
I don't feel that it should be just the district checking in, but also the other bodies in the same city or area. We all serve the same purpose, to grow the body, but so often fear sets in and we would rather see the new part wither than to risk losing any girth of my body.
*/ sound of stepping off the soap box
Love you guys
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