I ran across this article in the Acts 29 newsletter by Ed Stetzer on church planting observations, specifically observations on the state of North American Mission Strategies (From Journal of Evangelism and Missions, Fall 2005).

It is an overall positive picture of the growth of church planting (CP), CP support systems, CP networks, house churches, and church planting resources over the past few decades.

It even touches on the implications of the PEACE plan coming out of Saddleback. Having been to their PEACE briefing, and seen the implications myself as we begin to implement this strategy, this is going to have HUGE worldwide effects on mission, church planting, mercy ministries and a whole slew of other things. More on that later...

In 2004, the Church Planting Group of the North American Mission Board asked me to undertake a study of the state of church planting in North America. When I led the Church Planting Institute, part of our responsibility entailed contacting every major church planting ministry with a web presence in order to ask them some key questions about church planting. We identified and contacted 124 organizations, denominations, churches, and agencies. They were asked several key questions including, but not limited to, the following:

• Has interest in church planting increased or decreased in your sphere of influence in the last 10 years?

• Describe your church planting systems including recruitment, training, and multiplication.

• How do you recruit and involve sponsor churches?

One noteworthy finding was that not one respondent indicated a decreased interest in church planting. In fact, all but two of the groups indicated an increased interest and none indicated a decline in such. Moreover, many indicated that their interest in planting churches had increased dramatically. Read more...

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