So if meeting the spiritual needs and evangelizing in a new community is the goal, how will it be done? There are two types of churches that experience great numbers of new converts, namely evangelistic centers and new church plants.

As expressed in my last blog. God has been calling me to plant a church. When my wife, Treche, and I left our first ministry position of five years in Minnesota we prayed together that we would be involved in an evangelistic center. God answered our prayers and for many years in Virginia we marveled as Jesus allowed us to take part in a church that was an evangelistic center. Our part in this work was a blessing as God built what was by all accounts one the largest youth groups on the east coast where many students and families were coming to know Jesus.

Now God is leading us to plant a church. The pastor that led my family to the Lord was a man named Earnest Moen. As my pastor and later as an important State Church leader he would often say, “The only way to increase the number of new believers is to increase the number of new churches.”

What my pastor believed instinctively has since been born out in study after study in landmark works such as Christian Schwarz’s Natural Church Development. In his book Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them says, Thom Rainer, writes the following:

“In the typical American church it takes the combined efforts of 85 Christians an entire year to reach one convert. This is not true, though, for new churches. They are usually filled with new believers. Ten to fifty percent of people in these churches will testify that they became Christians as a direct result of the efforts of the newly planted church.”

Roughly half of all U.S. churches did not add one new person through conversion growth last year. It is my prayer that many will come to know Jesus through the venture ahead.

See Why Start a New Church.

Advertisement