Awhile ago I wrote an article called Why YOU Should Plant a Church. You should check it out.
You should also check out Kevin Cawley's response.
In it, he brings up two main ideas- not everyone is gifted, called, or even qualified to plant a church, an idea, by the way, with which I wholeheartedly agree.
He also challenges me on my definition of success/failure, but I'm sticking to my guns on that one...
More on who SHOULDN'T plant a church later today...
Bob - liked the article. Who shouldn't? Hrm. About half way through seminary a group of us got fed up and started reading all the house church books. We decided to start one, which lasted about a year. The best part was planning. Then, the most enthusiastic planners were the one's who did the least. After a few months, some of us felt like "what are we doing?" We wanted to be a house church so bad, but as soon as someone started laying down structure, someone else would say, "wait, no structure, remember?" No one preached, because we felt awkward trying to teach each other the stuff we just heard in class. We were transient, too, knowing we'd graduate within two years. (Why would God grow something like that, right?) In the end, we just called it a fun experience. We drew tons of attention to alternative church ideas and a general dissatisfaction within church-as-usual. We were banned, then embraced, then assigned pastors to work with us, who didn't, then churches tried to launch house churches, but held them too tightly. They never even realized we were an utter failure as a plant. Haha, oh well. Steve
Posted by: Steve | August 24, 2006 at 11:25 AM