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Missional theology in a rap song. Great stuff.

‘Send Me’ - Live at MHC | Ballard from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

Here’s the next installment in Church Planting with Small Groups…look for 2-3 more. In some ways, this item could be the most controversial, based on the very different approaches I’ve heard suggested. Feel free to push back on me here or give your take.

________See also Intro, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4________

Give at least ten percent of income to missions via responsible stewardship.

Almost every church planter would agree in principle that, As a church, we want to support the Great Commission from day one. Up for debate is when day one begins. The rub is that the new church can’t support new evangelistic efforts if the people aren’t supporting the church. So when the church starts via small groups, the question becomes pointed: At what point in the church’s life should “tithing” (or generous giving) begin? Answer: As soon as people buy in to the vision and commit to being part of it.

Generous donations to missions are indicative of a strong, sacrificial missional ethos, and cash flow sends a clear message to core members: We may be small, but we are confident in God’s ability to provide to grow his church and to provide for our needs; God is generous when we are generous, and we want to love lost people like he does. It is no accident that of churches that give ten percent or more of income to missions, 80 percent grow quickly.[1]

What constitutes a “church?” Simply put, the church is the people of God. A local church is a group of believers who commit to doing life together for the glory of Jesus and furtherance of the gospel in a given context–even if there are just a dozen of them. It follows that if your “church” can easily fit on three sofas, they should still be invited to give their time and resources.

The goal of giving generously and missionally presupposes that the church planter has taught his people to do these things. Money follows vision–so the planter will need to cast a kingdom vision that encompasses all of life and justifies the donation of wealth. On a nuts and bolts level, a long-term stewardship development program will enable the church to eventually become self-sufficient–which is in itself a significant factor contributing to the health and survivability of church plants.[2]

Discussing money in a small group setting may seem more difficult, but the leader will need to have a plan to transparently put finances on the table from day one. This is a topic that could be discussed individually with core members as they consider the prospect of the new plant, e.g., “We are looking for people who will help set the tone for our community: people who are humble, others-focused, and ready to generously support this new gospel work with time and money from the beginning.”

________See also Intro, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4________

[2] State of Church Planting USA: Improving the Health and Survivability of New Churches, 3.

Before reading this, see Part 1 and Part 2.

Start the first group immediately after selectively recruiting a core team.

Your founding small group needs to be composed of the right people. Perhaps equally important, it needs to be kicked off at the right time. Ed Stetzer writes, “After field cultivation comes the time for small group design. The planter or team should locate interested members and then follow up immediately by involving them in a small group. Taking too much time between contact and involvement may squander good opportunities because some prospects may lose interest if not followed up quickly and appropriately.”[1] Therefore, the interim between recruiting team members and forming the first small group should be as brief as possible. When a threshold of eight to twelve invested adult members is reached, the first small group should be launched.

Related to this goal is the necessity of “being picky” when selecting invitees for the first small group(s): “The prospects of survivability in a new church plant diminish if in the early stage the church attracts too many nominal or hurt Christians who are unwilling or unable to change (i.e. church hoppers, burned out leaders, the chronically hurt, etc.). Also, if those initial members are unwilling to actively seek and welcome those who are different from themselves it can also reduce the health and survivability.”[2]

Therefore, founding small group members should be humble, teachable, others-focused people who love the gospel. The strong desire to recruit new members may tempt the church planter to take anyone he can get; this impulse must be resisted.

I’m currently working to build our core group–while also canvassing for potential sponsoring churches/networks–so this reflects where I am right now. Question, if anyone wants to take a shot at it: How did you find the people your plant needed to get off the ground? Did they come primarily from a sending church (not an option for us right now)? Were they new friends from new relational networks in your target area? How did you go about identifying those core members?

[2] Ed Stetzer and Dave Travis, State of Church Planting USA: Improving the Health and Survivability of New Churches (Leadership Network, 2007), 5.

________See also Intro, Part 2 & Part 3_________

North America is the home of “big-launch” church plants, celebrity pastors, multi-site campuses, video venues, and a bigger-is-better approach to ministry in general. However, pioneered by church planters and missiologists like Alan Hirsch and Neil Cole, the overlapping categories of small groups, cell groups, and house churches have also gained a degree of acceptability and allure.

The purpose of this series is to explore the mechanics of planting a church via a small group strategy–but with the caveat that there is no hypothetical growth cap or “preferred size” for the growing church. For our purposes, a “small group” will be understood as a missional community of eight to twelve people who meet weekly to pray, study the Bible, grow in Christian fellowship, and work on ministry tasks.

A third category of church plants exist: those that “launch small,” adopting a small group dynamic to get off the ground, while maintaining the expectation of sustained growth-growth that, if it culminated in sprawling mega church services, would provoke no feelings of regret.

Frequently, when large services and small groups are pursued within the church planting context, they represent a demarcation between contrasting ministry philosophies and cultural streams. Planters who build large churches are comfortable working within a church bureaucracy and expect to wield considerable authority. Meanwhile, practitioners who prefer a decentralized, postmodern ethos readily embrace a ministry approach that aims small and stays small (sometimes even microscopic).[1] However, a third category of church plants exist: those that “launch small,” adopting a small group dynamic to get off the ground, while maintaining the expectation of sustained growth-growth that, if it culminated in sprawling mega church services, would provoke no feelings of regret.

Frequently, the governing assumption in church planting is that if a church planter intends to build a large church, he should start large, and there is statistical warrant for this, since only 20 percent of churches that begin with 1-25 adults grow rapidly, exceeding statistical norms.[2] The difficulties faced by churches stay small are well documented. [3]

However, many healthy churches trace their origins back to a small group of people who were inspired by a unifying vision. Today, church plants continue to grow and become established, even when they begin with the odds dramatically stacked against them: “About ten to twenty people a week were showing up for our Sunday service, which had outgrown the living room of my rental home and was now being held in one of those epically awful youth room, complete with the golden shag carpet on the floor and the Christian rock posters on the wall…”[4] The question is, how can a church plant be positioned in such a way that “starting small” and “growing big” are both feasible? We will attempt to briefly identify seven “best practices” that can contribute to building a healthy church plant via small groups.

________See also Intro, Part 2 & Part 3_________

[1] Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005). Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger document a “church” in England that is composed of 12 members and does not intend to grow further.

[2] Stephen Gray, Planting Fast-Growing Churches (LifeWay.com, 2007). 3 May 2008, available from [2] Stephen Gray, Planting Fast-Growing Churches (LifeWay.com, 2007). 3 May 2008, available from LifeWay.

[3] Ed Stetzer, Small Church Research (LifeWay.com.com, 2008). 3 May 2008, available from [3] Ed Stetzer, Small Church Research (LifeWay.com.com, 2008). 3 May 2008, available from Ed Stetzer’s Blog.

[4] Mark Driscoll, Confessions of a Reformission Rev. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 38.

Steve McCoy has developed the “Missional Triad,” an ecclesiological model that emphasizes–surprise–missional living. He also reveals that he’s a decent draftsman. I like models that emphasize gospel initiative while allowing that the church can also exert an attractional influence on culture.