Steve Davis has an intriguing article on church planting over at Sharper Iron. I will quote the first part of his article then encourage you to go read the whole thing.
Left Behind: The Apparent Absence of Fundamentalists in Resurgent Church Planting
by Steve DavisWhile Fundamentalists often noisily do battle over issues important mostly to their sub-culture, there is a battlefield where Fundamentalists are conspicuous by their absence. There has been a resurgence in church planting in North America and few Fundamentalist churches have answered the call. The names of leaders in this resurgence are well-known and include Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, Bob Roberts, and Ed Stetzer, to name a few. Whatever Fundamentalists think of these men, let there be no doubt that they are engaged in the most noble of tasks””the Great Commission””on a scale rarely seen and in cities which, with some notable exceptions, have been long abandoned by solid, Bible-believing churches. These leaders are not without their foibles, and controversy often surrounds or follows some of them. That said, it must be asked if there are any church planting movements in Fundamentalism with the depth and breadth of what is taking place in conservative evangelical circles.
Recently I attended a conference on church planting where several thousand active or prospective church planters and their wives were in attendance. Admittedly the presenters and attendees were from diverse evangelical backgrounds, a blessing in many ways in witnessing the diversity and unity of the body of Christ. Many in attendance could not plant churches together, a fact they recognized, due to doctrinal differences that are at the heart of one’s understanding of the nature the local church. One speaker, a prominent Southern Baptist leader, expressed his friendship with and admiration for Tim Keller, yet confessed that they could not plant a church together. There would be an immediate conflict over needing a bowl or a bathtub to baptize the first convert. Yet in spite of obvious differences and the inability to partner in church planting there was a laudable spirit of cooperation to help others plant churches by providing training, mentoring, and access to resources.
Why not?
We cannot partner with anyone or everyone to plant churches. But planting churches is not an option. It is a matter of obedience. If fundamental churches are lagging in this area they need to ask themselves why. The neglect of church planting is flagrant and perhaps nothing will hasten the demise of Fundamentalism more quickly than the inability or unwillingness of Fundamentalists to be engaged in this work. Alas, church planting requires cooperation and networking, rare commodities among many Fundamentalists, among whom the spirit of independence and individualism persists, and few churches have the resources to go it alone. In addition, churches must recognize that the churches they plant may not be a mirror image of the sending and supporting churches, an unacceptable condition and consequence for many churches.
Some of the reasons for the lack of church planting movements in Fundamentalism were addressed in an earlier article and won’t be repeated here. In this article I would like to expand on those earlier thoughts and raise some questions.
I will offer this opinion up front. Most traditional churches cannot reproduce themselves….
[read the entire article]
Cooperation is definitely key to starting and running healthy churches. There is so little of this in Japan. If you drive through an average Japanese city, you will probably see 3-4 churches. However, most of these churches run about 20-30, and if they are big you may see 80-90. I know numbers aren’t everything, but given the population in Japan, you might wonder why there are so few people in the congregation. One main reason is that each of these churches is run by a denomination. There are actually 3 different Japanese Baptist organizations, and this does not include all of the missionary started churches.
One time we attended a Japanese church when it was announced that a staff member was marrying a lady in another denomination. It was almost as if he was being excommunicated, stripped of his membership and given little blessing for leaving the denomination.
Another example… I spoke with a missionary friend recently who was sent by a “Fundamentalist” church. He was shocked to hear about successful churches in Japan such as New Hope who have more than 200 members, or even Tokyo Union Church and Tokyo Baptist which have well over 500 members. Churches like this hold Christian conferences and concerts with other denominations at places like Tokyo International Forum (which seats 5000 people). This friend could not believe that such churches that have “completely different doctrines” could cooperate with each other – although the “completely different doctrines” consisted of 1-2 preferences around practices in the church.
Japan has so few Christians that it is critical to work together. I cannot imagine why people would want to stick to their personal preferences when it is so difficult to find someone who believes in the same God.