Churches that start churches that start churches….

The cover story of the Winter 2008 issue of On Mission magazine asks the question: “Where do churches come from?” The answer is that churches come from churches. It is a normal and healthy thing for churches to reproduce themselves. New churches that are geared toward reaching new communities, people groups and population segments are the by-product of effective disciple-making.

Healthy churches continuously grow new disciples and leaders from the communities that they reach. New leaders need new opportunities to grow in the use of their spiritual gifts and churches need to keep an outward focus to avoid conflict and mission drift. It simply makes biological and Kingdom sense that healthy organisms and churches grow and reproduce.

Southern Baptists need to double the number of churches in the Greater Orlando area just to catch up with the rest of Florida. That can be accomplished fairly easily if each church that is a part of GOBA would start at least one new church in 2008. However, catching up is not enough because Florida is behind the curve when compared to the rest of the country and especially southern states. To keep pace with population growth, we need to start a least one new church each and every week in Central Florida.

The housing slump of 2007 is not expected to have a long-term impact on the growth of the region. According to myregion.org, the seven county Central Florida area is expected to double in population by 2050. The new growth will occur in population centers of smart growth where people can live, work, play, shop and worship together within their own neighborhoods. Areas like Horizons West and Lake Nona will bring tens of thousands of new residents to Greater Orlando.

Not only do we need to catch up and keep up with population growth, we need to focus on community transformation. Church planting is a bi-product of making disciples and releasing leaders. It is a means to an end - changed lives, changed communities and changed regions. In Acts chapter 19 we see the beginning of regional transformation as a church was started in Ephesus. This church trained missionary church planters and sent them to start churches that started churches that started churches. The result is that everyone in the Roman province of Asia Minor heard the message of the Gospel (see Acts 19:10). Imagine what Central Florida would look like if every man, woman and child had the opportunity to respond to the Word of God in their own context. It is possible that this place will one day be known more for Jesus Christ than Mickey Mouse. It starts with you and your church.