“Giving Birth – The Kingdom of God and Church Planting”
March 10, 2002
Dr. Jerry Nelson with Pastor Fritz Dale
One holiday my family gathered for a party.
My brother-in-law, not knowing that games had been planned, happened to find some salted-in-the-shell peanuts on the mantle and ate them.
Minutes later he found some in a planter – he ate them as well.
Much to my sister’s chagrin, in the half hour before the game was to begin, he had found and eaten most of the peanuts.
Many of you are seated behind a chair with a small red sticker on it.
Please don’t eat the stickers but leave them in place for something we are doing later and in the next hour.
The message this morning is different from the usual sermon in our church.
This message is for those who consider SGC their church home but our hope is that visitors also will find it exciting.
And here is the excitement:
By the fall of 2002 we wish to
commission 150-250 people from Southern Gables to join Pastor Fritz Dale in the
formation of a new church in southwest suburban Denver.
I and the other leaders of this church are calling you to join us in giving birth to a new church.
And to stretch the metaphor unnaturally, we want to give birth to an adolescent church – not an infant church of 15-30 people but a fully functioning church of over 150.
Before speaking of this plan in more detail I wish to remind you of some background that gives the strategy and passion for this action.
We believe God has given every church the same mission.
It is articulated in Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you...”
Most call it the “Great Commission”.
It summarizes what any church is to be about.
We have rephrased that commission for us in these words:
“Helping people become faithful
followers of Jesus Christ.”
And we have a picture of what “helping people become faithful followers of Jesus Christ” looks like.
We call it our “vision” – a vision or picture of the future.
We have stated that vision in three parts:
· Discipling the congregation
· Evangelizing the community
· Reaching the world
We want to be a church that is “discipling” those whom God brings to us – helping them become faithful followers of Jesus Christ.
That is what Sunday services, Sunday School, home groups, Student ministry, Pioneer Girls and Boy’s Brigade is all about.
We want to be a church that is “evangelizing” the homes of our own community – giving people an opportunity to hear about Jesus in a way that in personal and understandable for them.
That is what personal evangelism and church planting are all about.
We want to be a church that is “reaching” the world by assisting in the establishment of a reproducing church in every people group of the world.
That is what our missions and missionaries are all about.
Today, I want us to look especially at that part of the vision we call: “Evangelizing the Community:
· Prayer for every person,
· The gospel to every home and
· A church for every neighborhood
And most especially at the third of those three – “A church for every neighborhood.”
Just before Jesus ascended to heaven after his resurrection he reiterated the commission to his people:
Acts 1:8 “…You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”
What is instructive to us is how the disciples of Jesus responded to his commission.
They began to “establish” or plant a church.
They witnessed and preached and a church was birthed.
Acts 2:41 “Those who accepted (Peter’s) message were baptized and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”
Acts 2:47 “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
In Acts 2 and 4 the church is described as a people who gathered often, worshipped, took instruction, cared for each other and reached out to the people around them.
Then in Acts 8:1 we learn “…a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”
And the result was that Acts 8:12-17 A church was planted in Samaria.
And we learn further in Acts 8:31 “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers…”
In Acts 10-11 we learn that a Gentile church was established in Caesarea.
In Acts 11:19ff a church was established in Antioch where Paul had his first ministry in the church.
That church in Antioch took church planting seriously, Acts 13:1ff “In the church at Antioch…the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’…so (the church) sent them off.”
Acts 14:1ff A church was established in Iconium
Acts 14:21 “Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch…and appointed elders for them in each church…”
Acts 16:4 “As they (Paul and Timothy) traveled from town to town…(and) the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in number.”
And in Acts 16 and following it is recorded that Paul and others planted churches in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Corinth, Ephesus, and many more cities and towns throughout the area.
When the church in Jerusalem and the Apostle Paul set out to fulfill the commission given by our Lord to reach Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, what did they do?
They planted churches.
Church planting was their strategy!
SGC has been given the same commission which we declare in our MISSION of “helping people become faithful followers of Jesus Christ.
And our VISION demonstrates the same strategy adopted by the Apostle Paul – planting churches.
Planting them internationally (through our missionaries), nationally (with our denomination) and locally (our discussion for today).
Church planting is the primary method of accomplishing the Great Commission not only because it is the method adopted by the early church but also because it has been demonstrated over and over again that church planting is the most effective means of evangelizing a community.
Study after study shows that more smaller churches will effectively reach more people with the good news of Jesus than fewer larger churches.
No matter the size of the church, roughly the same number of people come to faith in Christ each year through each church.
A church of 100 sees as many people come to faith in Christ, as does a church of 1000.
The point is not that large churches are ineffective (for they are effective in many other ways) but the point is that more churches are needed for us to complete the mission given to us in SW Denver.
In a study which I did with the cooperation of other SW area churches, I discovered that if every evangelical church in our community (fewer than 50) was filled to capacity three times every Sunday, we could accommodate less than 10% of the population.
If we are serious about evangelizing this community – about making it likely that every man, woman and child, will hear a personal, understandable call to faith in Jesus – then we need more churches.
We determined at that time that we would need 200 churches of 500 each to serve even 25% of the population.
Church planting is not new to the Christ’s church historically nor is it new to Southern Gables.
· In the early 1980s several of us of Southern Gables, working with our district superintendent, assisted several families from our church establish a new church called “Cornerstone”.
· In the mid-1980s we established two “satellite congregations and later as a result one of our pastors started Emmanual EFC.
· Also in the mid-1980s we encouraged and sent 2-3 families to help form Evergreen EFC which later merged with Bergen Park EFC.
· In the early 1990s Bob Knapp (an elder) and I went to a national church-planting conference to learn how we could more aggressively pursue planting new churches in our community.
· In the mid-1990s we continued our discussions about church planting and Jon Haley put many of our and his thoughts in a paper entitled “Toward a Biblical Theology of Church Multiplication” – which helped spur our present plan.
At that time we set some goals for church planting:
Two new churches in our area by 2003
Support church-planting pastors
Encourage people of SGC to become involved in church-planting.
· In the late 1990s, as indicated earlier, I began to work with SW area Pastors to outline a plan for saturating our area with new churches.
· About two years ago, under Jim Kimbriel’s leadership, we developed a more specific church-planting strategy.
Using the metaphor of human reproduction we talked about the two ways we wanted to encourage church planting in our community:
Adoption – (Kirby, Downs/Gross, Scardina, etc)
Conception - Which is what we are talking about today!
· Last year we included $10,000 in our budget to begin the search for a church-planting pastor to lead our first “conception” church plant.
Many of you have been with us for several years through the construction of our facilities.
You undoubtedly remember the “model” in the welcome center where we anticipated the addition of a larger worship center.
It could reasonably be
asked if “church-planting” indicates a change in strategy for Southern
Gables.
“Are
we planting churches now instead of building a new worship center?”
Many years ago we on the Elder Board made a conscious decision to abandon the typical “church-growth” mindset of American Evangelicalism.
Because our mission is not
about size it is about making Christ-Followers.
We deliberately abandoned projecting the size of SGC because that was not our goal.
We did consider it responsible to accommodate whatever growth God gave us and thus we planned facilities that would help care for the growth as it came.
A new worship center is not our goal – As we continue to grow, we may well need to add a new worship center but that is not our goal.
Through the past several years, we have always had good reasons not to get more significantly involved in church-planting here in Denver.
One of the primary reasons has been that for 12 years or longer, we have been raising funds to adequately meet the facility needs of the present congregation.
Until now!
By God’s grace and your generosity the West Wing is paid for and we have adequate facilities to minister to this congregation at least for a while.
By having three services we are able to accommodate over 1500 people in the worship center and we are now averaging over 1000 plus children.
But there is another reason for planting a church now.
While, for several years, we have had the vision to plant churches we have not had, until now, the right person to lead a church plant - As one leader said, we had the bus but not the driver.
We now have the driver – Pastor Fritz Dale.
Over the summer of 2001 God worked in Fritz’ heart to give him a heart for planting a church.
Our circumstances and vision and his “heart” converged to make this the right time.
I
want Pastor Dale to come and tell you what God did in his heart over the past
year.
I have loved and worked with this man for over 18 years.
There is no one I will more sorely miss in day-to-day ministry than him.
But there is no one who can better help us take the next step in completing our vision than this man.
Our commitment to each other is long and strong.
But our commitment to the mission Christ has given his church (this church and the new one) is stronger.
And
so our plan is that:
By the fall of 2002 we wish to commission 150-250 people from Southern Gables to join Pastor Dale in the formation of a new church in southwest suburban Denver.
Why 150-250 people?
We usually think of new churches as small.
A church that begins with a core of 200+ people has a much higher survival rate than churches that are planted with only a handful of people.
This is a proven model for starting new churches.
For the past several months we have been doing our homework and working a plan:
We began by asking the Missions/Evangelism Team under Pastor Kimbriel’s direction to form an ad hoc committee to study the specifics of a plan and bring it to the Elders.
Working closely with me, that committee made up of Pastors Kimbriel and Dale, Michael Murphy, Dan and Lynn McCutchan, John and Barb White, Doug Nickelson, Connie Dale, Kirk Wilson, and chaired by Jon Haley met several times and did a great deal of homework arriving at the proposal that is in print and available to you this morning at a table in the Welcome Center.
On February 21 the Elders adopted the proposal.
Last week we invited the leaders/teachers of the various ministries of the church to hear and discuss the idea with us.
Today we present it to you and call for your prayerful consideration of either directly participating in the new church or of serving in new ways to make it possible for others to go.
In mid to late April we will hold a congregational business meeting at which we will invite the Partners of Southern Gables to ratify this recommendation to be a church-planting church.
A new church leadership team is beginning, under Pastor Dale’s leadership, and they will meet weekly to give shape to the new church in terms of its mission, vision, philosophy, core values, and next steps in birthing the new church.
In addition to the new church leadership team we are also forming a Transition Team, which will work to ensure the ongoing ministry vitality of SGC while giving birth to a new church.
Staff and other leadership vacancies, financial considerations, and other issues will be part of what the “transition team” will study and act on.
On April 7, 14 and 21 there will be several information meetings to which everyone and anyone is invited to learn more about the new church and eventually indicate their interest in being part of the new church.
Those who indicate an interest in being part of the new church will be contacted about what they may do to help make it happen.
You will not be recruited to go with the new church or stay with Southern Gables – you will decide whether you want more information.
Through spring and summer the new church ministry teams will expand so that, God willing, the church will be birthed by mid-September 2002.
Frankly we don’t know the full answer because at this point we have no way of knowing the number of people who will go with a new church.
But anticipating that upwards of 200 people will go we expect that we will need many people who remain at SGC to step into servant-leadership roles here.
This will, in one sense, “force” some of us to a new commitment, and all of us to a deeper commitment to the mission and vision of Southern Gables.
The “Transition Team” will have the task of exploring all of this and making recommendations to staff and elders about how best to move forward.
Following are some of the concerns that face us in birthing an adolescent church:
· How will we pay for a new church and maintain our commitments at SGC?
· Will my family members or friends leave?
· Will too many leaders and teachers leave?
· Aren’t we stronger as one larger church instead of two smaller churches?
· “Will God ask me to go with the new church?”
· Will a church plant reduce our children’s and student ministries?
· How do we replace Fritz?
In childbirth there is pain.
There is a sense of uneasiness as we live through this transition from being one church to being two churches.
There is also a sense of loss – friends and family members who will hereafter attend different churches.
To give us a “feel” of what it could be like to commission 250 people to start a new church I would like those of you who have sticker on the chair in front of you to stand.
It will hurt to have this many and these people go from us to start a new church.
It will mean some family members will go and others will stay.
Yes, there is a cost.
But as in childbirth, the cost pales in comparison to the joy of the future.
When we think only of ourselves we think of loss.
When we think of the future of the Kingdom of God, we anticipate the joy.
Imagine if this many people helped us establish a new beachhead in this community and if they and we did the same again in three to five years.
That’s right, this is not a one-time plan but a part of an on-going strategy for starting new churches supported by SGC.
We want to do that both through “adoption” and “conception”.
It is our ”Vision” of the future.
Planting new churches, especially in this manner, is a matter of faith and a “kingdom” perspective.
Believing that the starting of new churches is an important part of our
mission and vision, it is Southern Gables’ stated intention to be
instrumentally and consistently involved in the planting of churches locally
and abroad.
Michael Murphy who is already planning to be part of the new church made the following comment: “This new church is not simply an “option” for us but a mission.”
He’s not interested in a new church as if he needs an option to Southern Gables.
He loves this church and even if he didn’t there are already several options available in other churches.
He is captured by the vision of SGC to plant churches.
And he’s captured by the mission of a new church.
While mega-churches capture the headlines in today’s evangelical world, the truth is that not just large churches but more churches are needed for us to accomplish our mission and vision.
Let me give you three illustrations of the power of multiplication in expanding the kingdom of God.
In Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1956, Immanuel Baptist Church was 300 in average attendance.
Between 1956 and 1969 they planted 12 churches.
Years later Immanuel merged into another church and continues.
Eight of the new churches are today between 100 and 500 in attendance.
Two of the planted churches died.
One is 1200 and the last is over 2500.
Then Immanuel averaged 300 in attendance, today the combined average attendance is over 6500.
Eleven new churches were planted and are currently in existence
Two more are currently being planted--one in the LittleRock area and one in Tennessee.
Along with the planting of churches they have also aided 11 other churches that were unhealthy.
Twenty-four churches have been either started or aided by this church.
About four years later they planted a church in Lakewood called Southern Gables.
Bethany has since planted Castlewood and Ken Caryl Free Churches
Southern Gables has encouraged the beginning of four new churches.
The total attendance of all those churches today is over 2900.
Church Planting is part of our strategy to fulfill our vision and complete the mission God has given his church.
Prayer