Church Planting Exercise: If you only had one month to start a church, what would you do with your time?
Let’s add some context: You find out that your town doesn’t have a church. You may very well be the only follower of Jesus. You know that you should love God, love people, and make disciple-making disciples. You have no team and no resources other than food, clothing and shelter. What do you do?
Before answering the question, let me also say that I’m curious to hear from people in the missional and attractional church planting camps (and all the other church plants that don’t fall neatly into one of those two categories).
I should also point out that this is simply an exercise. I know it is God who establishes His church. This is a fun activity to help us think through what is most important to us about church planting (plus I’m hoping you’ll help me with some good ideas! 
So, what are your thoughts? Would you spend your time on budgets, buildings, and bodies? Would you spend your time in prayer? Would you spend your time on relational evangelism, event evangelism, servant evangelism, or mass marketing? Would you spend your time on demographics and ethnographies?
What would you do?
If there is no church in the area, that may be because the people don't like church or it may be because no-one has offered a church. I would start by the direct route: meeting as many people as possible and inviting them.
If that didn't work, I would try a longer-term plan to get to know people and earn the right to speak with them about spiritual matters. I would start by finding an underserved area of the community and do something surprising and exciting for them. For example, if kids have nothing to do on Saturday or Sunday mornings I might start a kids club, gradually get to know the parents, and launch the church from there.
Thanks John, I agree…we need to be engaging the people around us! Whether we have a month or 50 years, we should be living every day as if it's our last.
I also love your emphasis on meeting needs and serving people.
I've had the privilege of working under the lordship of Jesus to plant a number of churches in a month. This was both in the U.S. and in Spain; among the very rich to the very poor. Obviously they were not “congregational” churches, which would be impossible. They were house churches. However, they were among previous non-Christians. The most important thing in planting churches among previous non-Christians is following Jesus’ pattern in Luke 10:1-11. These are the instructions that Jesus gave the 72 in Kingdom advancing ministry. It is the exact same thing he taught the 12 in Matt. 10, Mark 6, and Luke 9. Obviously it was important to him. I have too many things to say about what this looks like and lessons I’ve learned along the way, for this space. I’ve started a blog for that. Perhaps one of my latest posts could be helpful, for those who are interested, as a place to get started: Four Keys to Church Planting, a post on July 26, 2010.
Thanks Ross, I'll definitely check out your website. Of course, churches can be started in a day, but for the sake of the exercise I'm just trying to get a sense of how people would manage their time, literally. Luke 10 is a good point and I think it's valid in my context (that's a lot of what I'm doing). But to make it more concrete, do you go literally to people's homes? Are you knocking on random doors or do you already have connections and you are simply spending time with people you've met? Or do you contextualize and spend time in coffee shops or other venues where you can spend time with people?
Again, thanks for your comment and what looks like a great resource at http://thejesusvirus.org. Keep planting!
I love the questions you are asking because the demonstrate someone who is seeking to be productive in the harvest. They are similar to questions I've asked.
I've been planting house churches since 2001. The learning process has been long, and it is not over. However, I've never started any of church the same way twice. Nor have any of my many friends around the world, and here in the US, stared them the same way twice. I say this with one caveat, they always start with prayer, and usually with praying consistently and fervently to find the man of peace (Lk. 10:6) or worthy person (Matt. 10:11).
Our Western mindset and training have biased us to look for the best techniques or methods. Jesus told us fruit comes from abiding (Jn. 15:5). When I train church planters the first thing we usually work on in the discipleship process is their abiding relationship with Jesus and prayer. Invariably, they want to talk about technique. When the time is ripe, Jesus will give them the technique or method that matches the context.
My advice then is to go back to Jesus. Pray fervently through Lk. 10, especially to find the person of peace, and ask Jesus what to do next. He is Lord of the harvest. He has the answers and will give them when the time is ripe.
By the way, when I pray like this, it is not uncommon for the person of peace to "appear out of nowhere," but not always.
Ross, so glad you are engaging this question here!
Me too, Rick, but I'd also love to hear your thoughts? What about you? Would you walk down the street knocking on doors? Would you stand outside the grocery store and talk to people as they come out?
There are no right or wrong answers (well, I guess there could be some wrong answers), I just love how God uses so many people to fulfill His purposes and I'm interested to record some of those approaches here. I'm especially trying to shy away from any models or techniques, yet there are some behaviors that we can pick up from each other that may be more effective than others. Yes?
While we lived in Germany, I attended a a CP seminar led by a long-time missionary. My interest was piqued by a friend who indicated this CPer had something to say. Needless to say, it was all I could do to remain silent (I was brand new in the context), as he laid out a foolproof plan to plant a new church in Germany that was EIGHT YEARS LONG. Needless to say, that falls outside your suggested parameters. At the same time, I should admit that I'm not a CPer. That's why I contacted Ross when I read your post because this is his passion. Mine is to work with existing believers, seeking to do DNA transplants, helping them identify and move away from old patterns, to help them draw new maps for a landscape that's totally changed.
Here are a few responses I've gotten on Twitter:
@joe_kennedy said: "spend every waking moment with the same basic group of individuals. exactly what i do right now."
@JohnUpChurch said: "The obvious is lots and lots of prayer, but I'd go w/ finding ways to serve community, Bible study, and neighborhood vol work."
If we do a study through the gospels and Acts, we'll find that, in the majority of cases, not always, people were drawn to Jesus by means of supernatural events. So, yes, I'd start praying–and start praying for people.
An exception–well, a hybrid example–to this is when Paul went to Thyatira, and the first thing he did was lead a woman named Lydia to the Lord. However, it was two supernatural events that furthered the ministry there: the deliverance of the slave girl and an earthquake, which resulted in the salvation of the jailer and his household.
So, as I prayed, I'd start looking for a new convert to disciple. And I don' t mean just teach about discipleship. I mean disciple as in what Jesus did and Paul did. It was doing ministry together, along with teaching. Paul said that we have many guides but not many fathers. We should disciple as fathers. Start with one, maybe two or three, radical disciples for Jesus. However, not much will get done in a month. And that's ok.
Thanks for your thoughts. It is certainly through a work of the Spirit and following Jesus' lead. I appreciate your heart for making disciples…something we have in common!