1976

Church Planting

Multiplying Communities of Disciples who follow Jesus in the Real World

Our desire is to follow Jesus ultimately to see a healing gathering of Christ-followers within practical, cultural and relational distance of every person, touching every neighbourhood with Christ's saving power, love, care and truth - that "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14)."

Where is the Church Growing or Declining?

The good news is evangelical Christianity is generally growing a little more rapidly than world population. The bad news is that when liberal and traditional denominations are factored in Christianity as a whole has remained at about 1/3 of world population.

Beginning Your First Disciple-Making Community:

Making disciples

Forming disciple-making communities

Understanding Church Planting Movements:

Church Planting Movements (CPMs) - David Garrison (

Root principles of Movements that Move - Dwight Marble                       

Can CPMs take place in the West? - David Garrison and Ed Stetzer  

"Critical Elements of CPMs" - David Watson in MP3 audio

"CPM Counter-Intuitives" - David Watson, 20 brief teaching segments (in MP3)

Mission Frontiers on "Training for Trainers" (T4T); full issue on CPM approaches.

Carol Davis: "Stop Planting Sterile Churches" (PDF)

  • The difference between church planting and CPMs (Perspectives "Lesson 13")  MP3 audio

  • How to plant reproducing churches (Perspectives "Lesson 13") MP3 audio

Perspective on the Global Task:

The Past: click here for a very encouraging historical perspective. Or here for global evangelical growth 2005-2010.

Today: (click on either of these images to enlarge)

 

  Each dot represents evangelical presence.

Next Steps: please read Seven Million Churches to Go - Jim Montgomery 

Comparative Global Needs for Church Planting:


 To download a static version of the above interactive map, click on this thumbnail:

Global and regional maps: in PowerPoint or PDF

By Country: in Excel including

  • % evangelical & evangelical growth rate

  • % Christian & Christian growth rate

  • unreached people groups

  • number of Christian congregations

  • church-to-population ratios (showing comparative priorities for church planting)

  • number of new churches needed to bring church-to-population ratio to 1:1000

Christian, Evangelical and Muslim distribution and trends (PowerPoint).

Other Studies: Todd Johnson - "Christianity in Global Context: Trends and Statistics" (PDF

Discipling a Whole Nation"(DAWN) Strategies

(Also known as "Saturation Church Planting" (SCP) or "National Initiative")

A national initiative is not an event but a process in which the majority of the body of Christ (leaders of denominations and missions) come together for the purpose of seeing the whole nation saturated with churches in all its geographic and ethnic and cultural spaces for the sake of completing the Great Commission.

Practical steps to engage a 'whole city, region or nation'...

 

by Dr. Montgomery:

It's a DAWN Strategy, If... - Dr. James Montgomery (PDF)

In a Word - What is DAWN? - Dr. James Montgomery (PDF)

13 Steps to Saturation Church Planting - Dr. James Montgomery (PDF)

Fire in the Philippines - Dr. James Montgomery (PDF)

The Discipling of a Nation - Dr. James Montgomery (PDF)

Seven Million Churches to Go - Dr. James Montgomery (text only or full scan)

Then the End Will Come - Dr. James Montgomery (PDF)

 

by other practitioners:  

The DAWN Research Handbook - Roy Wingerd (PDF)

Contributions to a Canadian Experiment - Murray Moerman

Mobilizing Movements: Leadership Insights for Discipling Whole Nations - Murray Moerman

Leadership involves learning to develop teams

For links to other church planting sites, please click here.

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