Chapter 3
Ten Universal Elements
After surveying Church Planting Movements around the
world, we found at least 10 elements present in every one of them. While
it may be possible to have a Church Planting Movement without them, we
have yet to see this occur. Any missionary intent on seeing a Church
Planting Movement should consider these 10 elements.
1. Prayer
Prayer has been fundamental to every Church Planting
Movement we have observed. Prayer typically provides the first pillar in a
strategy coordinator’s master plan for reaching his or her people group.
However, it is the vitality of prayer in the missionary’s personal life
that leads to its imitation in the life of the new church and its leaders.
By revealing from the beginning the source of his power in prayer, the
missionary effectively gives away the greatest resource he brings to the
assignment. This sharing of the power source is critical to the transfer
of vision and momentum from the missionary to the new local Christian
leadership.
2. Abundant gospel sowing
We have yet to see a Church Planting Movement emerge
where evangelism is rare or absent. Every Church Planting Movement is
accompanied by abundant sowing of the gospel. The law of the harvest
applies well: “If you sow abundantly you will also reap abundantly.”
In Church Planting Movements, hundreds and even thousands of individuals
are hearing the claims that Jesus Christ has on their lives. This sowing
often relies heavily upon mass media evangelism, but it always includes
personal evangelism with vivid testimonies to the life-changing power of
the gospel.
The converse to the law of the harvest is also true.
Wherever governments or societal forces have managed to intimidate and
stifle Christian witness, Church Planting Movements have been effectively
eliminated.
3. Intentional church planting
In every Church Planting Movement, someone
implemented a strategy of deliberate church planting before the movement
got under way. There are several instances in which all the contextual
elements were in place, but the missionaries lacked either the skill or
the vision to lead a Church Planting Movement. However, once this
ingredient was added to the mix, the results were remarkable.
Churches don’t just happen. There is evidence
around the world of many thousands coming to Christ through a variety of
means without the resulting development of multiple churches. In these
situations, an intentional church-planting strategy might transform these
evangelistic awakenings into full-blown Church Planting Movements.
4. Scriptural authority
Even among nonliterate people groups, the Bible has
been the guiding source for doctrine, church polity and life itself. While
Church Planting Movements have occurred among peoples without the Bible
translated into their own language, the majority had the Bible either
orally or in written form in their heart language. In every instance,
Scripture provided the rudder for the church’s life, and its authority
was unquestioned.
5. Local leadership
Missionaries involved in Church Planting Movements
often speak of the self-discipline required to mentor church planters
rather than do the job of church planting themselves. Once a missionary
has established his identity as the primary church planter or pastor, it’s
difficult for him ever to assume a back-seat profile again. This is not to
say that missionaries have no role in church planting. On the contrary,
local church planters receive their best training by watching how the
missionary models participative Bible studies with non-Christian seekers.
Walking alongside local church planters is the first step in cultivating
and establishing local leadership.
6. Lay leadership
Church Planting Movements are driven by lay leaders.
These lay leaders are typically bivocational and come from the general
profile of the people group being reached. In other words, if the people
group is primarily nonliterate, then the leadership shares this
characteristic. If the people are primarily fishermen, so too are their
lay leaders. As the movement unfolds, paid clergy often emerge. However,
the majority—and growth edge of the movement—continue to be led by lay
or bi-vocational leaders.
This reliance upon lay leadership ensures the
largest possible pool of potential church planters and cell church
leaders. Dependence upon seminary-trained—or in nonliterate societies,
even educated—pastoral leaders means that the work will always face a
leadership deficit.
7. Cell or house churches
Church buildings do appear in Church Planting
Movements. However, the vast majority of the churches continue to be
small, reproducible cell churches of 10-30 members meeting in homes or
storefronts.
There is a distinction between cell churches and
house churches. Cell churches are linked to one another in some type of
structured network. Often this network is linked to a larger, single
church identity. The Full Gospel Central Church in Seoul, South Korea, is
perhaps the most famous example of the cell-church model with more than
50,000 individual cells.
House churches may look the same as cell churches,
but they generally are not organized under a single authority or hierarchy
of authorities. As autonomous units, house churches may lack the unifying
structure of cell churches, but they are typically more dynamic. Each has
its advantages. Cell groups are easier to shape and guide toward doctrinal
conformity, while house churches are less vulnerable to suppression by a
hostile government. Both types of churches are common in Church Planting
Movements, often appearing in the same movement.
8. Churches planting churches
In most Church Planting Movements, the first
churches were planted by missionaries or by missionary-trained church
planters. At some point, however, as the movements entered a
multiplicative phase of reproduction, the churches themselves began
planting new churches. In order for this to occur, church members have to
believe that reproduction is natural and that no external aids are needed
to start a new church. In Church Planting Movements, nothing deters the
local believers from winning the lost and planting new cell churches
themselves.
9. Rapid reproduction
Some have challenged the necessity of rapid
reproduction for the life of the Church Planting Movement, but no one has
questioned its evidence in every CPM. Most church planters involved in
these movements contend that rapid reproduction is vital to the movement
itself. They report that when reproduction rates slow down, the Church
Planting Movement falters. Rapid reproduction communicates the urgency and
importance of coming to faith in Christ. When rapid reproduction is taking
place, you can be assured that the churches are unencumbered by
nonessential elements and the laity are fully empowered to participate in
this work of God.
10. Healthy churches
Church growth experts have written extensively in
recent years about the marks of a church. Most agree that healthy churches
should carry out the following five purposes: 1) worship, 2) evangelistic
and missionary outreach, 3) education and discipleship, 4) ministry and 5)
fellowship. In each of the Church Planting Movements we studied, these
five core functions were evident.
A number of church planters have pointed out that
when these five health indicators are strong, the church can’t help but
grow. More could be said about each of these healthy church indicators,
but the most significant one, from a missionary vantage point, is the
church’s missionary outreach. This impulse within these CPM-oriented
churches is extending the gospel into remote people groups and overcoming
barriers that have long resisted Western missionary efforts.
Prayer
Needs
