Effective church planting

I moderate a church planting forum where 100+ missionaries regularly discuss issues impacting church planting movements and related themes.

One of our members is Kevin, a fellow IMB missionary here in South America.

Recently, Kevin shared with the forum an email received from another missionary serving in an undisclosed country about effective church planting...

• Prayer and fasting should be a regular practice. It should not be an occasional thing.

• There must be extensive personal evangelism. To be clear, this means sharing the gospel in one-on-one, not mass, settings. It means sharing with as many as one's team can share with. It means being intentional, looking for a decision.

• Train new believers and create the expectation that they are to train others.

• Train new believers in groups; those training groups will work to become churches.

• If you want to multiply the number of your churches, multiply the number of training groups.

• Train as many believers as you possibly can. Get as many together as possible.

• Training must be practical. The learner must be sent out to put his training into practice.

• Give them one lesson at a time and send them out to put that into practice by teaching it to someone else. Whoever does not complete the lesson cannot come back into the class he or she began with. He must start over.

• Teach your new believers to obey Scripture. Put that part of the Great Commission into practice (hint: it says, "teaching them to OBEY..."

• Get back to the basics. Be radical. Don't bring traditions and culture into the training. Stick to the Bible.
  

These are all very good and things we too have discovered to be true in our own ministry. However, I confess we fall short in many regards to these ideals. It is easier said than done. Perhaps some of you would like to add your own two cents to the list.

May we continue to learn from one another.