Tuesday, May 29

Church planting movement among all peoples

A Church Planting Movement among all peoples...
The gospel to every person...
Every believer a full participant in the
Great Commission.


The first part of our South America region's vision statement speaks of "A Church Planting Movement among all peoples..."

What is a church planting movement?

David Garrison, in his classic "Church Planting Movements" defines a CPM as a "rapid multiplication of indigenous churches planting churches that sweeps through a people group or population segment..." There is a whole lot more to it than that, but this gives a general idea of what it is we are talking about.

It is my understanding there are some 40+ confirmed CPMs going on in various part of the world today. In the book Garrison identifies ten common elements found in every CPM taking place around the world.

1-Extraordinary Prayer (we are talking about a lot of serious praying going on)

2-Abundant Evangelism (the idea of sow abundantly=reap abundantly; sow sparsely=reap sparsely)

3-Intentional Church Planting (not just evangelism, but planting new churches with the new converts, not trying to get them into existing churches)

4-Authority of God's Word (not only in doctrine, but in church practice)

5-Local Leadership (locals "call the shots" not so much the foreign missionaries)

6-Lay Leadership (not seminary trained professional pastors, but everyday lay people in leadership positions)

7-House Churches (no church buildings, instead many small home-based churches averaging 10-20 per house)

8-Churches Planting Churches (the idea of multiplying new groups rather than adding numbers to existing groups)

9-Rapid Reproduction (they multiply very quickly and in short time)

10-Healthy Churches (rapid reproduction in no way means lower quality, deficent teaching, or unhealthy church life)

In our case here in Ecuador we do not have a CPM--yet! While all ten elements can be found in our church planting efforts, we are weak in most of the areas that are crucial to seeing a CPM. I feel we are weakest in elements #1,3,8,9.

Areas that we are making good progress would be 2,4,5,6,7,10. If I had to label what we are observing in Guayas province it would be an "emerging CPM". We are doing a lot of the right things, but not consistently enough to see a true CPM in our midst. Our goal is to see 500,000 people come into the Kingdom in the next five years. Will you pray with us to this end? Thanks!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Querido Guy
El sábado pasado estuve pensando en su trabajo de plantar iglesias.
Es que visité una congregación de apenas un año de creada, a partir de la nada, en medio de un barrio marginal.
El misionero y pastor responsable, Prof. Ernesto Palermo (Perú), me comentaba sus experiencias, coincidentes en muchísimos puntos con lo que Usted suele plasmar en su blog.
¡Bendiciones!
La obra del Señor no para.
Un abrazo
Dany

Darrell said...

I am blessed by your relentless focus on the Kingdom first. It is also an example I am instructed by. I doubt a CPM is possible where there is less focus. The constant evaluation of where we are and what needs to change is not optional. God Bless You Guy Muse for the commitment! It is a joy to make a CPM in Guayas a daily prayer of mine.

J. Guy Muse said...

Dany,

Gracias por tu comentario. Creo que el tema de los "CPM" es fascinante pero nos cuesta aceptar que bien podria suceder en nuestro medio. Estamos tan acostumbrados a pensar que esas cosas occuren "alla" pero no "aca."

Darrell,

Thanks for the word of encouragement. The reality is that we are a whole lot more down about these matters than we are up. However, you are right in that we try to keep our focus on CPM. I have long felt we are on the verge of seeing an all-out CPM in our midst. God has provided all the resources needed, we just need to get our act together. Recently I have been encouraged at seeing several key pieces in the CPM puzzle begin to come together. What we need to concentrate on now is the #1 thing at the top of the list--prayer! Pray that God would bring all the pieces together and glorify Himself by giving us a massive harvest! THANKS for that daily commitment to pray for CPM in Guayas!!!

Unknown said...

Hey Guy,
I am trying again
http://charlesjasonpratt.blogspot.com/

Garrison's list of universal elements should not be focused on as much as the common element list. He does not list Mentoring chains in the Universal category. This is leading CPM practitioners to think that is not important. In fact it is the engine that drives a movement forward.
Make a comment of my blog and let me know what you think on the Mary Magdalene post

J. Guy Muse said...

Charles,

Thanks for your visit to the M Blog. You are right in pointing out that mentoring chains are what drives a movement forward. This is one of our weaker points in our own work, but it is one area we are very aware of needing to give more attention. I will revisit Garrison's "Common Element" list and see what we can recover, thanks for the tip.

I visited your blog and read with interest the post you make reference to. See my comments there.

Hope you were able to sort out your medical woes while in Thailand.