Church Planting in the Future
by Lance Finley, CGGC Executive Director
My
first memory of “church planting” occurred sometime in the mid 1980s. The Illinois Conference of the Churches of God purchased a church building that had become available due to the closing of a congregation from another denomination in a small town in central Illinois. The Conference put out word that a new work would be started. A pastor was appointed to the church and the new work began. I was just a teenager at the time and have no insight as to what went on behind the scenes related to assessments, training or other matters critical to the new congregation, I just remember that it never achieved viability and eventually closed. My first impression of church planting was simple: Find an existing church building that had been closed, and work to establish a new congregation in that same location. Over the years my understanding of church planting certainly grew and changed significantly. Later on, in my college and seminary years, I got to witness other models of starting new works. Those models typically didn’t start with an existing building, but often utilized rented spaces like schools, dance halls, fire halls or YMCA gymnasiums. I also became more familiar with the efforts behind the scenes related to assessment of church planters, training and funding. Several of the CGGC’s church planting efforts during the 1990s utilized a phone campaign that consisted of a team of people making thousands of phone calls in a given time period to inform potential church attenders of the new congregation being established. While such efforts would be considered culturally offensive or ineffective in our present time, they were effective for that day and age and helped identify a potential pool of people open to the ministry of a new congregation.
14 January/February 2022
