America Needs a Church Planting Movement
What is a Movement?
A Church Planting Movement is a rapid and exponential multiplication of churches planting churches to 4th generation and beyond.
Why a Movement?
The early church in Acts was a movement.
Our heritage is a movement.
The Church today around the world is a movement.
The Early Church in Acts was a Movement
God’s commission to us is to make disciples of all people.
The Church, from its inception in Acts, has by its nature multiplied. Beginning with only 120 people (Acts 1:17), under the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, the church multiplied exponentially. In its first few days, it multiplied, to 3,000 (Acts 2:41), then to 5,000 (Acts 4:4). It multiplied from Jerusalem (Acts 1-4), then to the area around (Acts 5:16). It multiplied across ethnic and social lines to Samaria (Acts 8:4) and to the ends of the known Roman world (Acts 13:3). By 350AD, over 50% of the Roman Empire were Christians. Churches were planted and movement was birthed. The church was birthed to be a Spirit fueled movement which made disciples and organized them into churches.
Therefore go and make disciples of all people, 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. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20
Our Heritage was a church planting Movement
The Methodist tradition was birthed as a Church Planting Movement in the 18th century. John Wesley’s heart is strangely warmed - God ignited the heart of John Wesley and the Methodist movement was launched. In the half-century that followed, over 100,000 people in England identified as Methodists.
Francis Asbury arrives in the American colonies - When Francis Asbury arrived in the American colonies in 1784, there were only a few hundred Methodists in America. At the end of the 19th century there were 9,000,000.
The Emergence of Free Methodism - A new Methodist branch emerged in the formation of Free Methodism. The missional fervency of these Free Methodists combined with their convictions about social justice, specifically, human trafficking, and the care for the poor and marginalized led to rapid expansion in the first four decades.
The FMC was a church planting movement for the next 40 years which led to 870 churches launched.
The Global Church is Multiplying as a Movement
Today 1,851 church planting movements around the world are documented*. In 2000, only a handful of movements existed but since then, they have proliferated. Missiologists have identified the core principles which indigenous movements have embodied. Mission Igniter is working to instill these core principles in the American context as we work for a church planting movement here.
*Missions Frontiers, Issue 44:3 May/June 2022.
Why not here? Why not now?
We believe that God’s design for the American church is that they would experience a church planting movement.
There is not a church for everyone
Across North America today the spread of the Gospel and the witness of the church has stalled considerably.
In the USA, there are 180 million with no connection to a local church, making this the largest mission field in the west and the third largest field in the world. (George Hunter, Recovery of a Contagious Religious Movement)
Approximately 60% of American society is beyond the current reach of existing churches.
The majority of churches in the United States have declined or plateaued.
Church participation is becoming increasingly less relevant and attractive to those far from God.
The fastest growing “religion” in the United States are the “Nones,” those who when asked what religious affiliation they adhere to would respond, “none.”
Younger generations (Millennials, Gen Z and Generation Alpha) are growing up largely without any connection to the church or faith in Christ.
65 million have already dropped out of active religious attendance (Church Refugees).
