On A Mission

I enjoy reading blogs when I have down time at work. One of these blog sites is written by Ben Arment in the Washington, D.C. area. Ben wrote this update today that made me think about my role as a church planter in Carrollton:

“I can think of dozens of planters who started successful churches because their itinerant ministry or local roots provided a ready remnant who were asking for a church.

Nothing wrong with starting a church from scratch, where nobody is asking you to do it. I did it. But just realize that, at that point, your role is not church planter; it's missionary. Your job is to raise up the remnant.”

We are starting a church from scratch in Carrollton. I do think it would nice to have a larger church sponsor us and give us an X amount of members to launch a church. God has other plans. I’ve never started anything from nothing so I’m completely dependent on God for the increase (no brainer there). There is a positive starting something from nothing; you are actually growing when people come into your group. I call increasing from people moving from one church to yours not growing but swelling. We grow when God draws people to Himself and they become His children. We are looking at outreaching to unchurched/unsaved people and to unchurched/saved (or back sliders). Starting from scratch and targeting unsaved and unchurched people means that it will take time and energy to equip people to grow in Christ but that’s our calling. It’s not about growing to 1000 people overnight. It’s about pointing people to Christ and after they are saved equipping them to grow in their walk with Him. As they grow in their walk with Christ, they point others to Him and the process continues.

I like Ben’s last thought about being more a missionary than a church planter when you start from scratch. My major in Bible College was Missions. I’ve learned to be a foreign missionary; in fact I wanted to be a missionary to Australia when I was a freshman. God has changed my direction since then; I’m a missionary to Carrollton.