Introduction: In November 2004, some forty people met residentially for the first Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) Church Planting Consultation in 12 years. They included church planters, educators, regional and national staff. The following plan was the outcome written up missions department at Didcot supported by a panel of practitioners. Incarnate Network is a fruit of that consultation, other outcomes from the consultation have to date been limited...
The Consultation was timely, given the renewal of interest in church planting/new forms of church, signalled by the large-scale ecumenical conference planned for March 2006 by Together in Mission and the CTE Group for Evangelisation. The timetable was packed with energetic discussion, characterised by honest sharing of stories and a passionate desire to see the Kingdom of God advanced through new churches and new forms of church. It also produced 20 pages of notes, amounting almost to a course in church planting in its own right, including 48 Action Points. These have been brought together in this report, under the headings below.
It is probably fair to say that, hitherto, the Union has had a policy rather than a strategy as regards church planting. Much has been achieved over the years, though most of this has been thanks to local initiatives – sometimes aided by Union or association advice and resources, sometimes not. Council enthusiastically adopted a policy in1997, which included various guidelines, protocols regarding the ecumenical dimension, the provision of consultants, and the publication of the basic resource Planting Papers. When sought, advice and encouragement have been forthcoming from regional and national staff, and Home Mission has a good record of supporting church planting initiatives. There are many good stories to tell and several speakers at the Consultation stressed the need for those stories to be told, in order to inspire and educate the denomination.
Church planting has now changed since it was on agenda in the 1990’s. The Challenge 2000 movement, which had the very positive effect of stirring up people to engage in planting new churches, had become somewhat discredited by the mid-nineties because the unrealistically inflated targets for new churches were nowhere near being met. This was despite a flurry of activity up to that point, as many of the easier options to plant were taken (most of them on the mother-daughter model).
Another factor also came in to complicate the picture, as the question was increasingly asked: WHAT should we be planting? The church in this country has been declining for a hundred years, and the rate of decline was accelerating as the Twentieth Century came to a close. What was the point of planting churches of the same sort that had so dramatically gone into decline? Would cloning a failed model not simply perpetuate failure? Surely the issue in church planting is not so much How many? as What sort?
The term Emerging Church has now become familiar and attention has switched to such Fresh Expressions of Church (to use the term preferred by Anglicans). Many of these do not look so very different from traditional forms of church, but some are hardly recognisable as “church” in the accepted sense. That is not the issue here, except to say that discussion of Church Planting and Emerging Church is really a single discussion, not two separate ones. The issue of WHAT is planted will now be informed by the Emerging Church scene.
The aim of the Consultation was to discover what is actually happening, where the strengths and weaknesses are, and what might be done regionally and nationally to promote church planting. This report sets out the main recommendations to emerge from the Consultation, shaped into its final form by a small working group (The Revd Ian Bunce, the Revd Juliet Kilpin, the Revd Peter Dominey, the Revd Daniel Pulham, Dr Stuart Murray-Williams, the Revd Derek Allan – with much help from Mrs Mary Parker).
Section 1 : Support
1.1 BUGB Church Planting Network
Church planting is often a lonely and stressful business. The pastor of an established church has a ready-made web of relationships and there are reasonably clear expectations about his/her role. By contrast, the planter may have few people around them, find that those who are with them need support rather than being in a position to offer it, and constantly be struggling with the question: what am I supposed to be doing?
A national network of BUGB church planters would aim to:
- keep people in similar situations in contact
- offer training, advice and ideas on a shared basis
- be a means of off-loading pressures and problems informally
- organise regional and national events
- keep the subject of church planting high on the Union’s agenda
1.2 Companions for planters
One way of combating the isolation mentioned above would be for each church planter to be assigned a companion. We are avoiding the term “mentor”, because it is already in use for NAM’s, but this essentially describes the role envisaged. Ideally, companions would have first-hand experience of church planting. The relationship would be informal. Companions would be sought from within the Network, in consultation with regional staff. One obvious difficulty would be that new plants are often very loosely organised (and indeed might not label themselves as a church plant at all), thus making it difficult to identify them in order to make links with their leaders.
1.3 Website / web facility
This would be a further manifestation of the Network, and would help to keep planters in touch with each other and also with new developments in church planting and Emerging Church. Much that happens in this whole field happens relatively quickly (and is ephemeral), so a website would be the ideal medium. Concern has also been expressed that almost all of the literature on church planting produced in the 1990’s is out of print – and much of it is now off the pace, anyway. The website would therefore be helping to fill a gap in serious reflection and debate.
Section 2 : Training
2.1 Training for the troops / teams
Most new church planting initiatives are likely to be attempted in teams, and it is not always easy to find training delivered
- within reach
- at reasonable cost
- at the appropriate level
Most people making up a church planting team will not need or want to acquire a Masters degree in church planting. They will want a basic understanding of what they are doing, from a theological and a practical point of view. To use a medical analogy, they need to be trained as paramedics rather than hospital consultants or brain surgeons – and there is much value in their being able to train as a team. A further recommendation to associations is that they ensure that they have at least one or two people capable of delivering good quality training in church planting – and the Union would have to take responsibility for training these trainers.
2.2 Initial ministerial training
For too long, church planting has been regarded as an optional subject within the curriculum for initial ministerial training – and the bulk of students entering our ministry have, therefore, had little or no exposure to the issue. Spurgeon’s College pioneered training in church planting but has not really been followed in this by the other colleges, and even the level of provision at Spurgeon’s has deteriorated. If church planting is a significant route by which BUGB can hope to renew itself and respond to the rapid changes in society, then any student coming into ministry can expect to be drawn into planting a church or at least to need to take on board the lessons of church planting. We believe that no student should leave college without a good grasp of the subject of church planting, coupled with significant exposure to the life of at least one church plant. It follows that no college course should be recognised by BUGB unless it meets these criteria.
Taking this theme further, we would want to say that, given that ministry in this country is now ministry within a missionary context (and will become increasingly so), every college course needs to be able to demonstrate that, at its heart, it is intentionally mission-based. To think or act otherwise would be tantamount to re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, and the Union would be guilty of complicity.
2.3 Retraining for ministers
A show of hands at the Consultation revealed that, of those that had planted a church, very few had had any structured training in advance. They had embarked upon ministry without any intention of becoming church planters but the opportunity had been presented to them, and they had responded. It follows that there is a need for an in-service ministerial training module on church planting that ministers who find themselves in this position can access. Church plants (and by the term are included novel expressions of church) often spring up spontaneously and rapidly, so there is little time for academic preparation. The more readily this kind of training is available, the more valuable it will be.
Taking this theme further, in-service training for ministers who find themselves about to embark on ministry in a fresh and unfamiliar context is something that has been discussed within the National Strategy Forum and elsewhere. It would be invaluable for a minister moving from rural or suburban to urban, or from pastorate to translocal contexts.
It may be that BMS World Mission, both with its vast experience of operating in missionary contexts and its excellent programme of training short- and long-term personnel for cross-cultural mission, could prove an ally.
2.4 Training for RE-planting
This is another need. By replanting is meant establishing a quite different kind of church in a place where a traditional one has either not prospered, or even closed. Some of the same people might be involved and the same buildings, but the church would be run on different lines – perhaps unrecognisable from its predecessor. Replanting offers an attractive new-for-old option, thus contributing to the renovation of the overall profile of the denomination. Replants also often take place in strategic (if difficult) places, where the problem in the past has been an inappropriate approach to being church. If church planting is likened to building on a green field site, replanting might be likened to building on a brown-field site. Inevitably, it carries certain extra complications with it and currently no specific training is on offer.
2.5 Training translocal & national staff
Linked to the previous section is the perception that national and regional staff would benefit from some training in church planting, in order to equip them to understand what is going on
- think and act strategically where new opportunities present themselves
- initiate church plants
- be better able to place and support church planters.
In the invaluable Grove Booklet Church Planting: Past, Present and Future (2003) by George Lings and Stuart Murray Williams, one of the key lessons for Baptists is that we must no longer treat church planting as a purely local church phenomenon. Until our associations and the Union centrally are pulling their weight, we run the risk of continuing to miss strategic opportunities, and allowing planting to take place badly. Unless appropriate training in what church planting is about is offered to regional and national staff, the likelihood of a strategic, proactive approach developing is obviously limited. It should go without saying that, in a fast-changing field such as this, the training will need to be updated constantly.
Section 3 : Strategy
3.1 Association Strategy
It has already been said that the weakness in Baptist church planting in recent years has been at regional and national level, rather than at local. The hope is that every association would adopt a strategy that keys in with national strategy. While not presuming to dictate in any detail what such a strategy should look like, the Consultation identified a number of obvious components. It would greatly help the cause of national cohesion if associations began their planning with the same set of objectives, and these may be summarized as follows:
- acting as a catalyst, often linked with consultancy
- mobilising concerted prayer
- mobilising cluster support for church plants and church planting
- being alert to opportunities for radical replanting / resurrection / grafting
- working through NST to place Planters in planting situations
- assisting in the provision of housing for church planters
- ensuring that external agencies (like IMB) are properly funded and that there is an agreed exit strategy from the outset
- taking a lead in church planting training including at ‘paramedic ‘ level
- caring for exhausted mother churches
- forging ecumenical partnerships, with new, lighter structures
- liasing with developers, planners
- encouraging heterogeneity in church structures
- brokering good closures, where called for
- ensuring the creative recycling of resources
3.2 Association church planting agencies
The work of Urban Expression in the East End of London is well known (see www.urbanexpression.org.uk). Urban Expression is values-based and works through self-supporting teams which are linked together. In its seven year history it has been instrumental in planting seven churches in some of the least promising places in the UK, and attracting some thirty team members in the process. The questions arose at the Consultation:
- How transferable is the concept behind Urban Expression?
- Could there be a Suburban Expression, a Rural Expression?
- Could each association nurture a church-planting agency modelled on Urban Expression (Eastern Expression, Central Expression etc.)?
3.3 The Ecumenical Question
One of the more controversial statements in the Grove Booklet mentioned earlier was that ecumenical church plants do not work. The authors have since received representations from people eager to disprove this assertion by quoting their own experience, and have always been glad to discover instances of healthy ecumenical plants. But their assertion remains defensible, because too many ecumenical plants were created as such for dubious reasons
- had a tendency to get bogged down in bureaucracy
- had a poor record of growth by comparison with other plants
- were a long way from being missional in intent or practice.
The Consultation fully endorses the spirit of these words and believes that the way is now open for creative, mission-centred experiment. Along with local churches that relate well to their neighbours and work with them in mission, the associations may hold the key to this, in that they have formal contacts with other denominations and are well placed to know what is being dreamt and planned by others. Associations could also act as brokers, where new patterns of ecumenical working were being tried. The ecumenical dimension, so long something of a minefield for church planters, could begin to emerge as a strength.
Note: The association could also be of great help when churches of various denominations find themselves being herded towards the classic LEP model (or even a multi-faith hotch potch) by a combination of Local Authority planners and housing developers, often under Section 106 agreements. Planners and developers have a tendency to agree to release land for building church/community facilities only if the group they are dealing with is ecumenical, and anyone who wants to stake a claim is included. It is a curious notion that churches should be planted according to the ecclesiological whims of planners and developers!
Section 4 : Resources
4.1 Home Mission
Home Mission is the Union’s one and only financial resource, and its record in supporting church planting, often taking risks in the process, is superb. Countless new churches might have never happened at all, or not happened so well or so quickly, were it not for the Baptist family investing imaginatively in sometimes very tender church plants by giving Home Mission grants. The Consultation recognised this and applauded the work led by Grants Manager, Chris Mepham. Whilst it would certainly be possible to find people and situations disappointed at being refused a grant, and indeed instances of aided plants that had not prospered, the track record is good and finite resources have been used well.
As the patterns of church planting change ever faster, and become more diverse, it will be necessary for Home Mission to keep up with these trends. It was not thought that a separate (or ring-fenced) fund to aid church planting was called for but some further agreement to apply lighter criteria to Home Mission applications for church plants would be welcome.
Two specific suggestions emerged:
- that simpler application forms be drafted for use in planting situations that consideration be given to grants being given for two or three years at time.
- The existing forms often make assumptions and ask questions that are simply inappropriate, and occasionally even hurtful, to church planters. Although annual grants are given with a tacit assumption that they are likely to be renewed, a two-year or three-year grant would serve to diminish both anxiety and bureaucracy.
4.2 “Manses”
The initiative of BUGB Treasurer, Bernard Rouget, with regard to the provision of housing for church planters was warmly welcomed and endorsed by the Consultation. We often remind ourselves that a church is people, not buildings, but the fact remains that people involved in establishing churches need buildings in which to live. Especially in areas of new development (and Government plans on this are proceeding apace), a small and de-centralised denomination is at a major disadvantage if it is unable to find funds to house its pioneers
4.3 Recycling inheritance from closed churches
Related to the previous point is the question of the use of money released when churches are closed. There would appear to be two main issues:
- How can such assets be maximised for the benefit of the Baptist family, rather than lining the pockets of property developers?
- To what use should the funds be put, and who should handle them?
Taking the lead on the first of these questions has been Jez Brown, Regional Minister in SWBA, which has set up Kingdom Developments UK precisely to ensure that properties are not sold off cheaply - thus allowing developers to make fat profits.
If the development is done by Kingdom Developments UK, it can expect to make substantial profits for the work of the Kingdom. Other associations are watching with great interest, and approaches to Kingdom Developments UK have already been made from outside the SWBA area.
Jez Brown has also insisted that a good deal of what he terms “mythology” surrounds perceptions about what can and cannot be done with funds released in this way. Where a trust is involved and its terms specify how assets from any closure and sale are to be disposed of, there is little room for manoeuvre. However, in many instances there is actually plenty of scope and the issue is about making good mission-based choices (by the Union, the relevant association, or both).
When a church closes, having served the Kingdom of God in a particular location for generations but having come to the point where its life is over, the right and natural course is to recycle the funds released into new forms of church that will serve the cause of the Kingdom of God in the coming generation. This will not automatically mean that all monies would go to support church planting, as there could well be existing churches locally (large or small) with a strategic claim to some help, but the presumption should always be that church plants and new forms of church would be the recipients of the bulk of the funds. This would be a practical way of the Union and its associations backing the need to replace old churches with new, to meet the new missionary context in the UK.
Section 5 : Trends and Patterns
5.1 Bi-vocational and lay planters
As far as it is possible to predict, there will still be scope for full-time, career church planters. However, church planting is never likely to be awash with funding and, by definition, church plants are unlikely to be able to produce sufficient revenue to support a planter (and family) until they are well established … and therefore past the point of being labelled a plant! The example of Urban Expression, with its self-financing teams, does offer a viable model but it relies heavily on people willing to commit substantial amounts of money to the team budget (and teams also look to Home Mission and elsewhere for support).
The Consultation recognised that most church planting in future would have to rely on bi-vocational planters, whose income earned in secular employment would basically subsidise their church planting work, and who would have varying amounts of time in which to church plant. This is, in effect, what already happens within Urban Expression. This, of course, means that different people would have very differing amounts of time available for church planting.
5.2 Dialogue with mono-ethnic planters
The Consultation regretted that it had not proved possible to have a fuller representation from leaders of mono-ethnic church plants, of which there are numerous impressive examples in London (notably among Nigerians, Ghanaians and Chinese). While it is likely that some of the principles and practices of such planters will prove to be difficult or inappropriate to replicate in different settings, the recent history of Baptist church planting, especially in London, has some remarkable stories of mono-ethnic planting and the Consultation was keen for further dialogue to take place in order that the Union at large could learn some lessons.
