Church planting and fresh expressions resourced by Incarnate Network

Missiologist Stuart Murray Williams is part of Incarnate Network. He asks questions about where Baptists in the UK are at with church  planting.  He examines the activity since 1993, analyses the trends and identifies the challenges facing Baptists. Then tentative suggestions are made about a strategy for Baptist church planting.

Where are we with Church Planting?

This question was the starting point for a consultation of (mainly) Baptist church planters and other leaders held near Uttoxeter in September 2006. The geographical answer to this question was that we were back in Derbyshire again after 14 years – which, of course, posed further questions: Why is Derbyshire significant? What happened 14 years ago?

In 1992 a Baptist World Alliance conference on church planting was held at Swanwick in Derbyshire. It issued a 10-point statement on church planting, addressed to Baptist churches across the world, entitled the Derbyshire Declaration. It included the following resolution and commitment:

‘A most effective means to fulfil the Great Commission is the establishing of new congregations…We resolve to establish churches that enable the character and teaching of Jesus to become incarnate within particular communities.’

‘We commit ourselves to promote church planting…We invite every Baptist congregation in the world to establish, or to explore the possibility of joining with other churches in establishing, at least one new congregation by 2000AD.’

Fourteen years previously Baptist leaders had recognised the missional significance of church planting and had encouraged Baptist churches to get involved in church planting. Prior to this, at least in the UK, Baptists and others had been planting churches but this practice had not received widespread recognition or support; indeed, church planting was often regarded with suspicion. But in 1992 Baptists, like many other denominations, took a fresh look at church planting and enthusiastically endorsed this practice. Interestingly, Baptists at Swanwick even used the term ‘incarnate’ which Baptists today are using as the name of an emerging network of church planters.

The Derbyshire Declaration represents a step forward for Baptist church planting. From 1992, church planting has been regarded as a noble, responsible and praiseworthy activity among Baptists. The Declaration includes the words ‘promote’ and ‘invite’. The initiative remains firmly with local churches to establish new churches, either on their own or in partnership with other churches. Nothing is said about the responsibility of the Union, the Associates or the Colleges. But Baptists have endorsed church planting, commended it, encouraged it, and urged churches to consider it. There has been a climate conducive to church planting, even a policy of church planting.

But there has been no national or regional Baptist church planting strategy. Individuals, congregations, Colleges and some Associations have taken initiatives. The Union has provided some financial support for church planters. And churches have been planted. But there has been no network of Baptist church planters, no strategic planning, no agreed criteria for recognising or training church planters and no mechanism for learning from best practice.

Does this matter? Isn’t this quintessentially how Baptists operate, relying on churches to take action locally, occasionally associating with others? Isn’t this where the vision and energy are, at local church level?

Before addressing these questions it may be helpful to review church planting over the past 14 years. How have Baptists been doing and where are we at now, apart from back in Derbyshire?

I am grateful to the Baptist Union (more particularly the Department for Research and Training in Mission) for the information I am using here. Although there has been no church planting strategy, there has been some attempt to research what has happened and to keep track of church planting initiatives. This is very helpful, although I am not aware that this information has been much analysed or disseminated, so it has not yet had much impact on the denomination. What follows is my attempt to interpret the data.

This is the record of Baptist church planting between 1990 and 2003 (it does not include Scotland or non-Union Baptist churches). There are a number of points to note:

• Church planting was already happening before 1992, but the heightened profile of the inter-denominational Challenge 2000 congress in Birmingham that year and of the Derbyshire Declaration increased the pace.

• The rate of church planting has not varied very greatly during this period. A new Baptist church has been planted every month or two.

• There was a discernible dip between 1996 and 1998, as there was in many other denominations, the result of various factors that hindsight has revealed: lack of suitable leaders, slower than expected growth of church plants so that they were unable to plant out again, slower than expected recovery of planting churches so that they were unable to plant out again, the easier opportunities for planting were no longer available, increasing concern about ‘cloning’ rather than creative planting, etc.

• But the pace has increased again and now seems fairly steady at just under 1 new church a month. This is not an exciting pace of planting but, proportionate to the size of the denomination, it compares well with others

This is the same period with church plants divided between the Associations, giving us a regional picture. Again, there are some obvious points to make and some more tentative conclusions to consider:

• Church planting is not happening evenly across England and Wales. There is much greater activity in some Associations than others.

• Most church planting has taken place in London and the south and south-east of England, where Baptist churches are numerically and economically strong.

• Some of the key Baptist church planting advocates were in these areas – Douglas McBain in London, Steve Ibbotsen in Peterborough (then Leeds), Peter Nodding in Nottingham and then Guildford, Harry Weatherley in Berkshire, and Geoffrey Reynolds in the old Southern Association.

• Maybe church planting has been reliant on a mixture of enthusiastic advocates and churches with resources of personnel and finance.

These charts take us to 2003. Figures are now available for 2004 (the complete picture is not yet clear for 2005), and these indicate a very similar pattern – both in terms of overall numbers and regional distribution. Church planting is continuing at the same pace and in the same locations:

• Central 1

• East Midlands 2

• London 6

• South East 2

• South West 1

• Total 12

This is encouraging and maybe worrying – what about the rest of the country? And is it not possible to see the pace increasing?

Adding the 2004 figures to the 1990-2003 figures and delving further into Baptist Union research, it is possible to detect some further trends and issues.

• In this 14-year period Baptists have planted approximately 158 new churches (to which we might expect to add another 22-24 by the end of 2006 if the rate of planting remains uniform).

• This can only be an approximate figure because the data gathering has not been entirely consistent, nor is there agreement about when to record a new church.

• Only 12 of these new churches (8%) have been planted ecumenically – far fewer than in some other denominations. Baptists tend to plant independently, except in new-build contexts.

• 23 of the reported church plants closed or disappeared – a failure rate of 15%, which is rather higher than that reported in many other denominations. We need to learn from these failures if we are not to repeat them.

It is also possible to indicate the kinds of communities into which Baptist churches were planted in this period (although lack of agreed definitions means these figures can only be approximations):

• Rural 14 (10%)

• Small town 26 (19%)

• Suburban 48 (34%)

• City centre 8 (6%)

• Inner city 31 (22%)

• Council estate 13 (9%)

Some tentative conclusions can be drawn from these figures:

• Baptists plant churches in different kinds of communities but unevenly.

• Roughly two-thirds of church plants appear to be in middle-class communities.

• Baptists are not much drawn to city-centre church planting (Baptist ecclesiology may arguably not be well-suited to this context).

• The inner-city figures look rather more encouraging than I had anticipated. But these figures need further analysis:

  • Almost all the inner city church plants (27 out of 31) are in London.

  • Two-thirds of the London church plants are ethnic churches, engaging with distinct communities.

  • There have only been 13 non-ethnic church plants in inner-city areas (less than 1 a year since 1990).

Overall, there is much to encourage us as we look back on 14 years (or 16 if we go back to 1990) of Baptist church planting. Many new churches have been planted. But there are also some strategic issues we should consider.

What challenges are before us?

Some of the challenges facing us can be summarised quite simply, although responding to these challenges will be more demanding:

• Can we maintain the present church planting momentum over the coming years, increase the pace and build a sustainable church planting movement?

• Can we find ways to learn from both failure and best practice?

• Can we learn to operate strategically, combining local initiative with regional and national research and deployment?

• Can we become less reliant on the ‘mother-daughter’ model and explore other ways of planting churches?

• Can we prioritise the inner cities, housing estates and areas of rural poverty, both in response to the gospel priority to the poor and marginalised, and in order to plant churches in areas where Baptists are weak?

• Can we plant both neighbourhood and network churches in order to engage with a diverse and complex society?

• Can we cross-fertilise church planting and emerging church experience for the benefit of both and of our inherited churches?

• Can we build partnerships with ethnic church planters who are planting churches effectively within distinct communities but not yet crossing cultural boundaries?

Baptist church planting has primarily been initiated by local churches, with occasional Association initiatives. Such entrepreneurial church planting has advantages – energy, ownership, local knowledge, flexibility, etc. – but also has disadvantages. Three of the most significant are:

• Churches are planted in areas of greatest resource rather than greatest mission need, exacerbating the current uneven spread of churches.

• There is a stronger tendency to clone when the planting team are drawn from and supported by a single church.

• There is limited opportunity for learning from and imparting experience to others.

There is no network of church planters, as in some other denominations, and there have only been three church planting consultations among Baptists in the past 20 years. There have been specialist mission networkers with responsibility for church planting, and some Association missioners in the past have had a church planting brief. Furthermore, several of the staff at Didcot have been and are advocates of church planting. Church planting is taught in most Baptist colleges but, in my view, in a wholly inadequate way – as modules fitted into courses that are not truly missional and that assume ministry will normally be in existing churches.

Consequently, there has been a policy of church planting and a climate among Baptists that is conducive to church planting, but there has been no real strategy.

At the church planting consultation at the end of 2004 the question was raised of how we might move from a church planting policy to a church planting strategy. Proposals were developed and presented to the Baptist Union Council, where they received a mixed response.

A significant difficulty is that those whose support is needed to implement such a strategy – the Colleges and Associations especially – already feel over-stretched and bombarded with many other expectations. But the need for a strategic approach to Baptist church planting has not diminished.

Without underestimating the practical difficulties involved, it might be worth setting out some possible foundations for such a strategy – at least as a basis for further discussion:

• An ecclesial issue that needs to be addressed is the current imbalance between two significant Baptist principles. At present the autonomy of the local church outweighs the historic commitment to associating. Such associating needs both to be re-emphasised and re-cast in a missional framework. This will require careful and persistent denominational attention.

• The development of a network of Baptist church planters is the first priority so that any strategy can emerge from the grass roots rather than being imposed. This network should interact with similar networks in other denominations for mutual learning. Consultations will be needed on a regular basis to augment web-based networking.

• The issue of training cannot be avoided. Currently none of the Baptist colleges has a truly mission-oriented curriculum and none has adequate training for church planters. If conversations with colleges do not result in significant developments, alternative training processes will be needed.

• The natural context for developing a strategic approach to church planting is at the level of Associations. Some of the Associations are already beginning to operate, or at least think, more strategically, but this needs to be widespread. Given the pressure already on Association staff, it will be necessary to offer support rather than add demands, which might involve:

  • Didcot staff offering to take initiatives within Associations on this issue, organising consultations to help churches think strategically and Association-wide.

  • Identifying a church planting advocate within each Association with responsibility for researching opportunities, identifying resources and personnel, interacting with other such advocates, presenting strategic ideas and taking initiatives.

  • The network of church planters acting as a resource to the Associations, rather than simply focusing on their own church planting activities.

  • Developing ‘good practice’ materials to help Associations learn from each other.

• But there will also be a need to strategise nationally and cross-culturally, as well as regionally, in order to prioritise under-churched areas and deploy church planters into these.

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