Chapter 8
Tips For Fine-Tuning A CPM
Alongside the models of Church Planting Movements we
have examined, many others could be described as near misses. A number of
these show many of the characteristics we’ve come to identify with
Church Planting Movements, but lack some essential components and thus may
result in aborted movements.
An example of this is a Turkic Muslim people who have been turning to
Christ by the tens of thousands over the past five years. As recently as
1992 there were no more than 50 known believers among this population of
several million. Beginning in 1989, a strategy built on prayer, 
evangelism
and ministry was initiated among them. Work was slow at first, but in late
1995 the turn to Christ began. By the end of the following year, local
churches in the area reported baptizing more than 15,000 of these Turkic
Muslims.
Today, the swell of new believers has subsided
somewhat, but still features somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 adult
converts. The troubling factor is the relative lack of new churches to
assimilate the growth. While convert growth has exploded, there has been
little increase in the number of church starts, threatening to leave
thousands of churchless orphans to fend for themselves.
Perhaps it is not too late for missionaries to
implement a strategy of planting indigenously reproducing cell or house
churches among this people group. Training lay believers to plant new cell
churches could redeem this movement.
A similar situation has taken place among a Muslim
people group in Africa. As a result of widespread gospel radio broadcast
and video evangelism, conservative reports estimate more than 15,000
Muslim converts to Christianity. Despite these encouraging numbers, only
30 known churches exist in the region. Unless a more effective and
indigenously reproducible model of church can be introduced, there will
likely be a great loss of new believers.
More common types of “near misses” are the many
places around the world where missionaries have experienced moderate
growth when much greater growth may be possible. In these
instances, missionaries have been faithfully evangelizing and planting
churches among their people group for decades. People are responding to
the gospel and the kingdom is slowly growing. While church growth is
steady, it is far from explosive. No one would confuse this with a Church
Planting Movement. In this pattern of incremental church growth, church
starts are not even able to keep pace with the population growth rate.
Are Church Planting Movements possible in these
kinds of settings? Only God can say for sure, but CPM practitioners
suggest that some fine-tuning steps might be taken that could help tip the
scales in favor of a Church Planting Movement. In some cases, the
gestation period for church starts is just too lengthy. In these
instances, it may be possible to shorten the reproductive cycle of a
church plant. Here are some tips that may help to speed the process:
If you’re using chronological storying to
communicate the gospel, remember that storying is a method, not an end in
itself. As a method, it can be adapted and modified. Consider using five
to 10 stories to provide a panorama overview of the Bible leading to a
gospel presentation and a call to commitment. You can then follow up the
panorama presentation with a lengthier walk through the Bible aimed at
discipleship and additional presentations of the gospel.
You might also try shortening the chronological
storying approach. Some storiers spend as much as 110 weeks working
through the Bible from creation to the consummation of the ages. Could
this be reduced either by choosing fewer stories or by offering the
stories more frequently? Perhaps both methods could be implemented. This
might reduce the time required for a church start from two years to a few
weeks!
In the same manner, consider compressing a 12-week
evangelistic Bible study into a 12-night Bible study. You get the picture.
Remember, speed of reproduction is one of the universal characteristics of
a Church Planting Movement. Resist the assumption that greater speed
equals diminished quality. The notion that slower is better isn’t
necessarily true.
You also can accelerate church planting by raising
the expectations and church-planting responsibilities of new believers. In
a Church Planting Movement, discipleship and leadership development are
ongoing processes rather than stages in a linear progression that
individuals must pass through before they can begin planting churches
themselves. Remember, in a Church Planting Movement in India, one new
believer planted 42 churches in a single year. No one told him he was too
spiritually immature for such behavior!
Finally, some missionaries may find themselves in a
situation that does not appear to have any of the elements that indicate
potential for a Church Planting Movement. What do you do then?
Many of those factors that contribute to—or hinder—a
Church Planting Movement take years to develop or change. Like a toy boat
floating on a pond, if we gradually stack pebbles on top of it, one by
one, the weight will eventually become too much and the vessel will
submerge. So it is with Church Planting Movements. Working steadily to add
elements that contribute to a Church Planting Movement and removing known
obstacles may someday result in a critical mass that transforms the
situation from a hard, dry, unproductive field into a dynamic Church
Planting Movement.
The beginning point for this change is a spiritual
renewal, a passionate desire in the heart of every missionary to see all
the peoples of the world come to saving faith. Only when our vision is
revived and we hunger for a Church Planting Movement are we willing to
take any and every action necessary to pursue this goal.
Prayer
Needs
