Why Church Planting?

March 17, 2009

2009 Westminster Missions Conference
In Retrospect
R. Jason Pickard, M.Div. pastoral candidate

“I decided to focus on church planting for this year's Missions Conference, because it is my conviction that the main way the Kingdom of God comes to earth is through the week in and week out proclamation of the Gospel as local congregations gather to worship.  Therefore, it is imperative that there be gospel-preaching churches, ideally, in every neighborhood.  Many of the Reformed denominations in the United States and Canada are very active in planting churches, so it is very likely that many of my classmates will serve as church planters.  So my hope for the week was to learn about the importance and process of church planting.

“To this end, we invited guests with various backgrounds and experiences to teach and challenge us throughout the week.  On Monday, David Smith with World Team was with us.  David served in Indonesia for many years and challenged us to not forget that church planting is about disciple making.  He has a desire to see church planting teams go out from local congregations to the nations.

“On Tuesday, Rev. Terry Traylor, Senior Minister of New Life Glenside (PCA), joined us to talk about his vast church planting experience.  Terry has been involved in church planting throughout his career.  He has planted churches in Florida, Texas and North Carolina.  I never really thought of myself as the ‘church planting type’ but Terry's passion and great practical advice left me thinking how fun and great it would be to plant a church myself one day!  I guess time will tell if this is God's call or not.  Either way, Rev. Traylor had many great things to say about the practical side of church planting.  It was a privilege to have an experienced church planter with us for the day.

“On Wednesday, Rev. Philip Ryken, Senior Minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church (PCA), preached a chapel message from 1 Corinthians title ‘Church planting for Calvinists.’  He challenged us to consider the ‘open doors’ that God has laid before us.  Also, he talked about how both the Apostle Paul and John Calvin were church planters.  Over lunch, Dr. Ryken discussed the role of the ‘mother church’ in church planting.  Tenth Presbyterian has planted several daughter churches so Dr. Ryken was able to offer great practical advice from the perspective of the mother church.  

“On Thursday, Dan Macha of World Harvest Mission joined us and passionately reminded us that the work of gathering in the harvest is as great as it ever has been.  It was great to hear about international church planting and how God is still raising up churches to do this harvesting work around the globe.

“On Friday, Mark Harbour, serving with Send International in Taiwan, joined us.  He and his wife have served in Taiwan for many years.  He too challenged us to remember that the work of world evangelization is as important as ever.  Mr. Harbour also opened our eyes to the great need for churches in Taiwan and other places around the world.  There are still very man places and people that do not have access to a solid, gospel-preaching church.

“Over the lunch hour on Friday, we had the privilege of hearing from fellow student Darrin Pesnell, who shared with us his long-term plans for planting a church in Phoenixville;  Darrin and some of his friends have started a group called Agnostics Anonymous that meets each week to discuss a passage of Scripture.  This evangelistic outreach and their other ideas and long-term goals are very exciting and encouraging.

“I personally was challenged throughout the week to remember once more the importance of the Church.  Christ is the husband of his bride, the Church.  This bride expresses herself in each of the gospel believing congregations that meet each week, faithfully proclaiming the message of salvation in Christ alone.

“To sum up my thoughts, all Christians, especially us seminarians, should be excited about and involved in (in one way or another) church planting because at the end of the day, church planting is about nothing less than the proclamation to the lost that Christ died to save sinners.  Therefore, we should hope and pray that God would cause many new church plants to begin, and flourish, around the world, to the glory of his wonderful name!”