Reflections on Church Planting Movements
Allen Thompson
April 2006
Intro.
My purpose in writing these reflections on Church Planting Movements (CPMs) is to bring clarity
to Redeemer’s vision of seeing dozens of vital churches established in global cities of the world. My own
interest in the subject goes back 50 years when I was dean of the “Los Pinos Evangelical Seminary” in
central Cuba. My parents, in partnership with a Cuban Presbyterian pastor, started a work training Cubans
to start churches. My Dad was the teacher-theologian, the Cuban pastor was the evangelist-church
organizer. Within 30 years, under the blessing of God, over 100 churches were started. Today that
movement continues in a very restrictive context with over 250 churches and a strong training base at the
seminary.
In this paper I will summarize the following:
1. Short literature review relating to CPMs
2. Common Definitions of CPMs
3. Comments on Redeemer’s definition and implementation of CPMs
I. Short Literature Review
Much helpful discussion of CPMs has emerged since David Garrison of the Southern Baptists wrote his
booklet, Church Planting Movements, in 2000.1 Though articulated for the present world challenge in
fronteer areas, Garrison did not uncover new theory or theology. Rather he researched movements to
Christ in pioneer fields and from observation outlined possible strategies. Formerly in the 1970’s Donald
McGavran began writing about “people movements to Christ” and the “Bridges of God” which then set the
base for the Church Growth Movement not CPMs. In older missiology we look to foundational writers like
Roland Allen who in the early 1900’s wrote The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and Missionary
Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?2 Allen, an Anglican missionary in China, had great influence on releasing of
national leaders to govern and propagate their own churches. His focus on the Holy Spirit’s role is also key
to fostering CPMs today.
II. Common Definitions of CPMs
The term, Church Planting Movement, has a number of definitions, each with a slightly different emphasis:
1.1 “A CPM is a rapid and exponential increase of indigenous churches planting churches within
a given people group or population segment.” (Garrison, p. 7) Here the main focus is on fast
multiplication within a specific context. Others who adopt this thinking have rephrased the title as Church
Multiplying Movements. The strategy of choice: development of cell and house churches. 3
1.2 ”Don’t focus on numerical growth, concentrate on qualitative growth.”4 “We should not
attempt to ‘manufacture’ church growth, but rather to release the biotic potential which God has put into
every church,” p. 10. Schwarz, through his research, identifies eight quality characteristics and asks, “Are
there distinctive quality characteristics which are more developed in growing churches than in those which
are not growing?” Of course, the obvious answer is ‘yes’. Therefore Schwartz would define a CPM as a
movement with spiritual momentum, churches that are addressing quality control. He adds, “Neither the
absolute level of quality reached (60-80%), nor the speed with which improvements are made is decisive—
1
David Garrison, Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World, 2004.
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods, St. Paul’s or Ours?, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962.
3
See Ralph Neighbour, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here? A guidebook for the Cell Group Church, 1990
4
Christian Schwarz, Natural Church Development, 1996, p. 3.
2
although both are worth striving for. The most important factor is the direction in which the quality index
is moving,” p. 122.5
1.3 “In World Team6 nomenclature ‘movement’ means a strategically planned, divinely
empowered expansion of the church in a given region or people group that can be observed in:
• A dramatic increase in the number of disciples (conversions)
• A prevailing deepening of spiritual devotion
• A widespread increase in evangelistic and social involvement on the part of Christians
• A noted increase in the church's influence in society
• Significant multiplication of churches (churches or individuals starting new churches)
• Marked growth in the vitality and maturity of churches
• Emergence of competent, biblical leadership”7 This definition attempts to balance growth with spiritual
quality and focus on competent leadership. However, it seems to de-emphasize rapid expansion in favor of
national leadership development and spiritual depth.
1.4 “We desire to establish in the country of our labors a strong church patterned after the New
Testament example. Further, we believe that in order to have a New Testament church, we must follow
New Testament methods.” 8 Hodges, for many years field secretary for Latin America of the Assemblies of
God, emphasized the classic definition of the three-self church (self-government, self-propagation, selfsupport) supported by Roland Allen, Henry Venn and others. Hodges focused on indigenous principles,
training of national leaders, and re-training of missionaries to promote indigeneity. Hodges and other
Pentecostal leaders would summarize a CPM as having two foci: indigenous church methods and the power
of the Holy Spirit. “The mechanics of a successful church on the mission field are the New Testament
methods; the dynamics are the power and ministries of the Holy Spirit. Either factor alone is incomplete
and inadequate,” p. 124.
1.5 “This then is what I mean by spontaneous expansion. I mean the expansion which follows the
un-exhorted and unorganized activity of individual members of the Church explaining to others the Gospel
which they have found for themselves; I mean the expansion which follows the irresistible attraction of the
Christian Church for men who see its ordered life, and are drawn to it by desire to discover the secret of a
life which they instinctively desire to share; I mean also the expansion of the Church by the addition of new
churches.”9. Allen in his definition emphasizes primarily a mobilized laity in evangelism, then an attractive
standard of life that draws others to Christ, and finally the unhindered emergence of new churches. After
laying down these principles Allen identifies six obstacles to this expansion in the Anglican church
(ineptness of professional missionaries, fear of false doctrine, fear of lowering moral standards, pride of
enlightenment and prejudice, cumbersome missionary organization, and elaborate, non-apostolic church
structures).10
Summary. While all five definitions focus on “movement” as resulting in more churches, none
captures the idea of “movement” as an ideology that sets a person on fire compelling him/her to tell the
story of his/her transformation. Perhaps Allen comes closest to this in his emphasis on the gospel that
transforms ordinary people into compelling witnesses or Hodges in his insistence on the power of the Holy
Spirit as the dynamic in all movements. Each definition apart from focusing on momentum and
multiplication then major on individual preferences such as cell churches (Garrison), spirituality (Schwarz),
leadership development (Thompson), local methods (Hodges), and removal of obstacles (Allen).
III. Comments on Redeemer’s Church Planting Movement vision.
My intention now is to clarify the way Redeemer Church Planting Center uses the three words—Church
Planting Movement--and insert strategies we are using to implement our understanding.
See Tim Keller’s Natural Church Development’s ‘New Paradigm’ assessment of Schwarz’ model.
I was General Director of this interdenominational Mission from 1967-82, 1985-1989.
7
Paul Thompson, The Church Multiplication Agenda: Filling the Earth with God’s Glory, paper 200l.
8
Melvin Hodges, Growing Young Churches, 1970, p. 12.
9
Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, 1962, p. 7
10
See Allen Thompson’s outline, Movement Blockers, taken from the book of Acts.
5
6
a. Movement. Let’s start with the word “movement”. Several uses of the word are common in the literature.
1. Organizationally (a) a series of organized activities by people working concertedly toward some
goal; (b) the organization consisting of those active in this way; (c) the rapid pacing toward the goal.
2. Sociologically (a) a tendency or trend in some particular sphere of social change; (b) doctrines,
opinions, or way of thinking that can change public policy; e.g. feminist movement (c) body of ideas on
which a particular social system is based; (d) a group of people who are organized for, ideologically
motivated by, and committed to a purpose which implements some form of personal or social change.
CPMs today are primarily interested in the organizational type of movement definition, e.g. organizing
activities and people to work cooperatively toward planting hundreds of churches. This is the new vision
coming from Campus Crusade, e.g. to begin developing kingdom partnerships and strategies between likeminded church planting leaders and ministries toward the goal of “Starting 5 million churches for a billion
soul harvest.”
While Redeemer CPM is interested in filling NYC with hundreds of churches, the primary goal is to
plant “gospel” churches. Underlying the Redeemer vision is the ‘ideology’ of the gospel with the goal of
changing people and culture. Therefore what propels the movement is commitment to a primary value, a
strategic theorem if you will, that has the power to unleash millions of people once they are grasped by
God’s truth. In this sense, Redeemer CPM could be called a Gospel Movement and is much more aligned
with the sociological definitions above. The plan below, while having specific goals, is rooted in the vision
of the transforming power of the Gospel.
VISION
Under God’s power to ignite a gospel movement in
New York that produces city growth.
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City Growth is marked by the Messianic Peace/Shalom that comes from the gospel of grace. The
gospel (rather than religion) directly leads to every kind of growth—spiritual, social and cultural.
City Growth is the new humanity—not just changed individuals, but also changed relationships,
neighborhoods, and culture.
City Growth is then an effort not simply to multiply individual Christians and churches but to
renew and transform an entire city.
MISSION
Over a generation we must assist Christian leaders to plant
five thousand new churches to reach the
fast-growing populations now rising in New York.



PLAN
Over the next 5 years—100 new churches
o 40 ‘new model’ churches including 15 center city churches (mostly PCA)
o 50 ‘partner’ churches (from different denominations and ethnic groups)
o 10 ‘grassroots’ churches (mostly among the poor)
Over the following 10 years—1600 new churches
Over the following 10 years—3400 new churches
Whatever the ideology, a movement that is gaining adherents and spreading spontaneously has two distinct
marks: significant literature (essays, booklets, manuals) on the primary value of the movement (in our case
the gospel), and evidences of commitment by its leaders to the ideology. In Redeemer’s case the following
materials are basic.
Primary Resource Material on the Gospel (all of these by Tim Keller)
Essays: What is the Gospel?
Centrality of the Gospel
Advancing the Gospel into the 21st Century
Study Courses:
Gospel Christianity (10 lessons)
Galatians: living in line with the truth of the gospel (13 units with exercises)
Romans: a study course on the gospel (23 lessons)
Sermons: the preaching at Redeemer which focuses on applying the gospel to human needs
Evaluating our commitment to the Gospel.
A movement’s ethos is caught by observing the lives of the leaders, church planter’s in the harvest, new
leaders that God is drawing and the lives of ordinary people in the churches. Is there something
extraordinary happening in their lives that is attractive and compelling? For us as a staff of the Redeemer
Church Planting Center, we ask ourselves, are we living in line with the gospel? The following exercise
may help identify strengths and weaknesses.
Gospel Commitment Evaluation
First read II Timothy in one sitting and search for the themes of each chapter. Using Paul’s exhortations to
Timothy as a framework, check yourself on the following:
Low Average High
I am characterized by. . .
1. Guarding the Gospel: II Timothy 1
• An ability to clearly explain the gospel in its fullness (1:8-10)
• Wisdom in defending the gospel (1:13)
1
1
2
2
2. Suffering for the Gospel: II Timothy 2
• Endurance: strengthened daily by God’s grace, vs 1
• Patience: entrusting gospel to faithful leaders, vs 2
• Boldness: rebuking and warning the deviant, vs. 14-19
1
1
1
2 3
2 3
2 3
4 5
4 5
4 5
3. Continuing in the Gospel, II Timothy 3
• Modeling life in the gospel: teaching, way of life, purpose, faith, vs. 10
• Scripture depth focusing on Christ, vs 15
• Thoroughly equipped for application of the gospel, vs 17
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5
4. Communicating the Gospel, II Timothy 4
• Spiritual authority: conscious of God’s presence through my preaching, vs. 1 1
• Evangelism: always ready to share the gospel, vs. 2, 5
1
• Using the gospel in counseling (correcting, rebuking, encouraging), vs. 2
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5
3
3
4
4
5
5
b. Church. With the variety of goals in Christian mission (educational, agricultural, medical, etc.) it is
important for any Christian movement to be crystal clear on its objective. With regard to our goal,
Redeemer is clear. We are not thinking of simply evangelizing or extending social service as our aim Our
mission is to start new, reproducing churches that will reach a specified people/region. So the question
emerges, what kind of church are we planting?
Garrison, in his study of various Southern Baptist movements, points out that most of the churches are
small (cell and house churches), led by lay, bi-vocational leaders. As to quality of life, Garrison adds that
“the Bible has been the guiding source for doctrine, church polity and life itself (p. 34).” He indicates some
training by missionaries but the emphasis is on releasing the leaders to become involved as soon as
possible in the growing movement.
In my experience in Cuba the church planting movement started by my father and a Cuban evangelist, BG
Lavastida, had similar elements. The difference in the Cuba movement was the centrality of training of
leaders in a Bible School setting. Though these leaders came from the rural masses with barely 8 th grade
education, they were taught through example, instruction and weekly involvement in evangelism and
starting of new groups. By the time they graduated most students had established one or more churches.
Most groups were from 50-80 people. And each church immediately started other groups in their
surrounding neighborhoods calling them preaching points. These churches quickly spread throughout the
central province of Las Villas and in 20 years numbered over 100 churches with countless preaching points
in all 6 provinces of the nation. The two leaders guided the movement, Elmer Thompson (a Baptist)
directed the training, and BG Lavastida (a Presbyterian) guided evangelism and church polity. After the
Castro revolution the national leaders continued to train and deploy leaders in the Bible School as their
predecessors had done and today over 250 churches have been planted.
While this account and others like it presents reproducible case studies for many areas of the world, our
question at Redeemer CPM is this: how do you apply the movement methodology to the great cities of our
world with a high level of diversity in ethnicity, education, culture and economics? and to New York city in
particular? What kinds of churches fit this milieu?
One answer is to revisit the definition of a biblical church. While various models (large, small, store fronts,
house churches, cell groups) are effective in different contexts and neighborhoods of the city, the church
planting leader must have a firm grasp of the essential elements of a biblical church. In other words, the
leader must have no doubt of what constitutes a true church according to the Scriptures.
The Reformers wrestling with this question responded with two essential marks: the faithful preaching of
the Word of God, that is the teaching of the Christian gospel according to the Scripture; and the right use of
the sacraments, that is baptism and the Lord’s Supper used and explained as setting forth the gospel of faith
in Christ. Later the Reformers specified a functioning system of discipline as a third mark. Luther found
additional marks of the true church alongside the original two. He specified the keys of discipline (Matt.
16:19), an authorized ministry (Acts 14:23; 20:28), public worship (Heb. 10:25), and “suffering under the
cross” (Acts 14:22, 20:29). Charismatics point to the active ministry of every member as a mark of the true
church (Eph. 4:7-16). In Redeemer’s model we focus on the traditional Reformed and Presbyterian
position for the PCA churches being planted. Since our church planters are all seminary trained and
credentialed by presbytery, we are not as concerned as to their understanding of the essentials.
However to encourage biblical reflection we offer two essays.
• Tim Keller, The Ministry of the Church, 2004, an 11 page distillation and interpretation of Ed
Clowney’s Doctrine of the Church and its Ministry in his books.
• Tim Keller and Allen Thompson, Church Essentials: The Healthy PCA Church, n.d., 2004.
This outline summarizes minimal standards and has been used by Mission to North America for a number
of years as a template for new church planters. In addition to these essays on ecclesiology we focus a great
deal on contextualization. We are concerned that the church fit the context in its ministry, communication
style, leadership structure and worship. So these churches while one in theology and gospel understanding,
are quite different in size, composition, and style of worship.
The issue of ‘What Kind of Church?’ becomes more complicated in the partner program as Redeemer
attempts to train church planters of different denominational persuasions to fill the city with vibrant,
worshiping congregations. A major training objective is to see the DNA of the gospel, explained above, as
a driving force in every church. However, we are also interested in determining whether the groups
established correspond to biblical ecclesiology. Therefore, we introduce a non-reformed edition of Church
Essentials: a Healthy Biblical Church as a study outline.
Sum: To conform to Scripture the elements of what constitutes a biblical church need to be examined by
leaders proposing a CPM. This description may take different forms but is more complex than two or three
people meeting together in the name of Christ for prayer and worship. The following is a comparison of
healthy church characteristics developed by Schwarz, Macchia and Keller 11. In addition to the quality
listed note the adjective which gives the characteristic a specific content.
11
Schwarz, Christian A., Natural Church Development, 1999, ChurchSmart Resources; Stephen A. Macchia, Becoming a Healthy
Church, 1999, Baker Books; Timothy Keller, condensed essays in Church Planter Manual, Redeemer Church Planting Center, 2002.
Christian Schwarz’ List
Empowering leadership
Gift-oriented ministry
Passionate spirituality
Functional structures
Inspiring worship
Holistic small groups
Need-oriented evangelism
Loving relationships
Stephen Macchia’s List
God’s empowering presence
God-exalting worship
Spiritual disciplines
Learning/growing in community
Loving/caring relationships
Servant-leadership development
Outward focus
Wise administration/accountability
Networking in Body of Christ
Stewardship and generosity
Tim Keller’s List
Evangelistic worship
Gospel preaching/teaching
Kingdom-centered prayer
Primary community groups
Accountable servant leadership
Humble/bold evangelism
Repentance/faith vitality
Holistic word-deed ministry
Church planting mindset
c. Planting. CPMs are in the business of starting enterprises, beginning something new. We call these
new ventures ‘planting’ to use Paul’s agricultural metaphor emphasizing inherent life. “I planted, Apollos
watered, but God gave the increase. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who
gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own
reward according to his own labor.” I Cor. 3:6-8.
The Redeemer movement definition asserts that a church planting movement is a Spirit-directed activity
which naturally builds, renews and expands the body of Christ in a given city-region through the recovery
and application of the Gospel.
While ‘movement’ in this definition primarily focuses on the strategic theorem of the Gospel that gives
dynamism and momentum, and ‘body of Christ’ clarifies the essentials of healthy reproducing organisms,
‘planting’ deals with harnessing and focusing the energies of the churches in reproduction. Our point is
that church planting will be natural and constant (not traumatic and episodic) as a result of the gospel being
applied constantly in growing, healthy churches. The first two elements—gospel and church—must be in
place, at least in rudimentary form, before natural church planting occurs and issues in a movement. In
summary, “you can’t plant the church if you aren’t becoming the church.”
For healthy churches to be reproductive—becoming natural church planting churches—the Acts-Christian
ministry mindset must be developed. Keller says this requires the adoption of several principles:
• First the ability to give away and to lose control of money, members and leaders. This is a huge
barrier for churches. They cannot bear the thought of money-giving families being lost or key leaders or
just friends. If a pastor helps organize new churches from his body, he loses money, members, numbers,
leaders, control. An additional problem—when he lets go, he loses direct control, but he can’t avoid
responsibility for problems.. It is like being the parent of an adult child. He is not allowed to directly tell
them what to do, but if there’s a problem, he is expected to help clean it up.
• Second, the ability to give up some control of the shape of the ministry itself. This is scary
especially to people who care about truth. But the simple fact is that the new church will not look just like
you. It will develop its own voice and emphases. On the one hand, pains must be taken to be sure that the
difference is not too great, or fellowship and cooperation is strained. Thus Paul emphasized “the faith.”
But on the other hand, if you insist that the church be a clone of your own, if you are not willing to admit
the reality of contextualization in the Biblical sense of adapting and incarnating—so different generations
and cultures will produce a different kind of church—then you won’t be able to do church planting!
• Third, the ability to care for the kingdom even more than for your tribe. Basically, the church
planting mindset is not so much a matter of trusting new leaders etc. but trusting God. Paul does not give
the new churches up to themselves or others. He “committed them to the Lord.”
Once these principles are owned, the ‘planting’ phase of a city-wide CPM takes: 12
1. Vision: (a) a network of churches must think, "we are not just a church, but a movement. We
are a church planting church." (b) The movement is fueled by a vision for a region or people consciousness.
Must have a vision beyond your church to focus on a transformed city or region or people group.
2. Vitality: One or more churches in the network must be evangelistically and spiritually vital and
growing with the dynamics of spiritual life. Vital churches attract contacts and leaders for new
communities and people groups. They generate core groups for daughter churches.
3. Partners: In the beginning, church planting movements within a new town or people group will
not be able to fund and resource itself from the inside, or produce all its own leaders. To gain momentum, it
ordinarily takes a network of partner churches outside the people group or region.
4. Supervision: The stronger and closer the supervision, (a) the more men are willing and able to
plant a church and (b) the higher the success rate, which builds more momentum for vision, vitality and
partnership. The more indigenous the supervision, the higher the success rate, too. Ethnic movement
leaders are critical for strong and close supervision among ethnic peoples. There will be no "movement"
without them.
5.Training/education: For a region/people group to rapidly produce new
churches, there needs to be available in the region/people group: (a) in depth church planter training and
assessment, (b) theological degree programs. Contextualized training centers will attract leaders to a region,
recruit new leaders from a region and provide the quality needed for a higher success rate.
Evaluation. How are we doing in RCPC as to our ‘planting’ activity? We must review and apply
Keller’s five points above to the churches planted in the last 10 years.
PCA churches:
• Vision
1. To what degree does our Northeast network think of itself as a movement? Evidence?
2. Which churches have a vision for a people or a borough? Are praying to reach them?
• Vitality
1. Which churches are growing numerically? Which are growing vitally? Do we have stats?
2. Which churches are thinking of providing core groups and finances for a new church?
• Partners
1. Which churches are looking for partners to help them launch a new church?
2. Has RCPC helped churches develop a funding strategy for new churches?
• Supervision/Coaching
1. Are we helping to identify coaches within the network?
2. Is training available for new coaches?
Partner churches:
• Vision: Is there any possibility at this juncture to facilitate a network of partner churches?
• Vitality: Is there any partner church that we would consider vital, spiritually and numerically?
• Partners: Apart from Redeemer’s assistance, are there other partners?
• Supervision/coaching: Where will coaches be found to assist partner churches?
Conclusion:
There has been good progress in the Redeemer CPM. Since beginning with the founding of Redeemer
Presbyterian Church in 1989 as a base church for church planting, Tim Keller and his staff have pursued
the CP vision with wisdom and boldness. 16 PCA churches have been established in NYC, 2 PCA-like
churches, and 20 partner churches. Since 2002, 56 partner church planters have received training at the
Redeemer Church Planting Center. In addition the NY Church Multiplication Alliance with 14
denominations participating has planted 87 churches since its inception in 2001 (with 99 additional ones
planned through 2005). The Redeemer CPC has also assisted in starting 10 churches in North America and
8 in Global cities.
12
Components and ingredients taken from Tim Keller, Redeemer: Changing New York, 1995, unpublished paper.
However, as Associate Director Mark Reynolds of the RCPC reports, four challenges remain. 1) the
strengthening of the 16 PCA churches so some emerge as Center City Resource Churches; challenging
other denominational churches to become resource churches; 2) assisting new churches to begin to
reproduce (only 10 daughter or granddaughter churches reported); 3) finding/designing additional ways to
deepen the understanding of the gospel in partner church planters; 4) recruiting gifted personnel to
strengthen the Church Multiplication Alliance at this critical juncture in its history.
Note: for a report on the impact of new churches in New York City, see Tony Carnes cover article, New
York’s New Hope, in Christianity Today, December 2004 issue.