The Vision for Church Planting in America and Beyond - Allen Roth | CGS 2019

Lesson Transcript

Thank you, God, for this day. Thank you that Brother Allen can be with us here and share something that's been on his heart for many, many years. Pray you'll give him the grace, the strength. May our hearts be open as we receive and listen. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen, thank you.

Yesterday, on our way here from New York, we stopped at a rest stop, and a lady asked my wife, "Are you a sister?" So my wife clarified for her, "Well, ask her, 'Well, what, what, what do you mean?'" And, uh, anyway, this lady told a very interesting story that, uh, she had been inactive as, uh, growing up as Protestant and was looking for something to reactivate her faith, something warmer. And she said, "Lord, I'm going to look. I need a sign.

Just don't let it be Jehovah's Witness, Mormons, or Catholic." And so for three days in a row she saw a certain cross. She decided to go there and ended up in a Catholic church. A-it's a very interesting story, but it just reminded me there are people who are looking, people who are searching. And, uh, God wants lost people to be found. Now, as you drive about our country here, uh, the US, one of the things I like to do as I go through towns is to see what kinds of churches are there.

And so typically you'll see around the plaza there, you'll see a Methodist church or a Presbyterian church, a Catholic church, and you'll soon see Baptist churches. And, um, it's interesting in this country, the average attendance in a church is 85. If you would look in a town, find the number of churches, multiply it by 85, and compare it with the town population, you'd get a sense for how many of the people in that area are actually in church.

Now, about six years ago, in traveling for six days through Quebec, I saw about five churches. That's it. We went to one of them on a Sunday morning, a little Baptist church in Quebec City. It is absolutely astounding what is happening in our country and in Canada. This morning, what I would like us to do is to think first about the need for planting churches in North America and beyond. Secondly, what are some reasons, good, solid reasons, for planting churches?

And then finally, what are some of the mindsets that either hinder or encourage church planting to happen? First, the need for planting churches in North America. And as you may be aware, as you, uh, read or listen or watch news, the moral crisis in America, in North America, is just absolutely phenomenal. Just within five short years or ten short years, it's just astounding. It leaves you breathless.

And you wonder, "What's the next new frontier that's going to be broken morally in this country?" It just keeps coming at us like you can't imagine. Think, as well, with us of the theological crisis in North America, where you actually have so-called ministers, usually of mainline churches, who will say that they don't believe in God or that it's even necessary to believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

There's a lady pastor in a uniting church in Canada, in Toronto, who publicly said, "I think what the resurrection is all about is not so much whether Jesus actually physically rose from the dead, but it's about being good people and loving and caring and helping each other." And when she made that announcement that she was actually an atheist, two-thirds of her church, 150 people, got up and walked out. All of them should have. If she wasn't going to walk out, they should have.

But that's just, uh, an illustration of the theological crisis in North America. Several years ago, on a talk show, there was a rabbi, a priest, and a high-profile television preacher, uh, evangelical of some sort. And when they asked the question, "Do you think that people need to that people who are not saved or born again will go to heaven? If they haven't heard of Jesus, will they go to heaven or will they go to hell?" The rabbi and the priest both said they didn't think they would go to hell.

The pastor said, "Well, for me, I believe that you need to believe in Jesus to go to heaven. What's this about 'for me'?" He was squirming. He was squirming there. You think of the lifestyle crisis in North America. This comes out of the moral and theological crisis. Think of the church attendance crisis in North America. For one thing that I've observed in the last 10 or 15 years is the growing reluctance of people to commit to being a member in a local church.

Even in our own churches, we have people attending who do not want to become members of a local church. The whole concept even of having a church membership is in question. So there's a negative view of church and of church membership. In this book, "The American Church in Crisis" by David Olson, a study was done of hundreds and hundreds of churches across this country from the year 2000 to the year 2005. Here's what he discovered.

On a given weekend this is in the United States; 88 out of 100 people will not be in any church. 77% of the people in America have no life-giving connection to a local church. 77%. On any given weekend, 91% of Americans will not go to an evangelical church. 91%. That's 9 out of 10 people. If you take the unchurched in North America and I'm assuming that this is referring specifically to the United States; in this country, there are 190 million people who are unchurched.

If you would take all of those people and put them in a country by themselves, it would be the fifth most populous country in the world. 190 million unchurched people all around us. The fastest-growing religious block in America is not Islam. It's the nuns. No, that's not Catholic ladies. It's the N-O-N-E-S, those who self-identify as having no religious affiliation. Pew Research said that in five years, the nuns in the US grew from 15% to 20%.

While 65 uh, while 10% of those who are 65 or older would identify as nuns, those who are under 30, 33% in this country will say they have no religious affiliation. Let's, uh just for example, I'm assuming some of the states that you are from would be, like, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, uh, New York, and so on. In this book, he has maps that show what has happened either in the increase or decrease in church membership. This map is Protestant mainline churches.

There is not even one single state that registered an increase in church attendance from the year 2000 to 2005. Not even one. In fact, some of them registered as high as a 19% decrease in a five-year period. That's Wyoming. New Mexico, 17% decrease. New York, my state, 10% decrease just in five years from Protestants. It's slightly better when you look at the map for evangelical churches. Those that are gray had a decrease. Those that were white had a slight increase, like 1%.

Pennsylvania actually had a 3% increase. Sounds a little more positive. All across this country, people are leaving the churches. What is going on? How can we turn that around? Now, there are several Canadians here I know. And for your benefit, in 1950, Protestants and Anglicans were 45% of the Canadian population. Now, they only represent 11%. In 1900, the Born Agains, the evangelicals, were 25% of the Canadian population. Now, they are less than 8%.

In Canada, the fastest-growing religions, Muslim, at nearly 5% per year. Buddhists, 4% per year. The nuns in Canada are now 24% of the Canadian population. But in British Columbia, 40% of British Columbia identifies as nun. But now, if you think that's bad, think about Quebec. Seven to eight million where only one out of 200 is born again. There is not a single country in the Western Hemisphere that is so low. Not Haiti, not Mexico, not even Uruguay at 3%, with a large percent being atheist.

In fact, if Quebec were to be on par with the rest of the percentage of evangelical churches in Canada, they would need 3,000 churches to be planted today. Brothers and sisters, in North America, we are living in a mission field all around us. The need for planting churches is amazing. It's overwhelming. But why should we plant churches? Ernest mentioned that there's no command in the New Testament, "Go ye therefore and plant churches." So, how in the world do we come up with this?

First, in church planting, we cooperate with Jesus as He fulfills His promise in Matthew 16, "I will..." blank, "My church." What is it? "I will..." build my church. He promised to build His church. How will He fulfill that promise where there are no churches or where the numbers of churches are in serious decline? He does not do it all by Himself, just like in many other aspects of life. In Him, all things consist. By Him, all things grow. But farmers still do go out and plant corn and beans and other things.

He doesn't do it by Himself. William Carey, a Baptist minister in 1792 or '91, proposed the idea, radical at the time, that if businesses like the British East India Company would go out would form corporations and go out and start businesses in different parts of the world, why wouldn't we use he called it "means" or "methods" for reaching the heathen for Christ as well? Why wouldn't we organize societies rather than just waiting for God to reach them? He was told, "Young man, sit down.

If God wants to reach the heathen, He can do it and He can do it without you." I'm sure He sat down. But after the meeting was over, He got up. He went out. He organized the first Protestant mission agency and then offered Himself to be sent. He's called the father of modern-day Protestant missions. God does not do it all by Himself. Thus, mission boards came into existence. Why wouldn't we organize to do the same for church planting in North America and beyond?

To the unchurched in our counties, in our states, in our countries, and in our neighboring countries. Second, the way the early church applied the Great Commission was by starting new churches. Ernest referred to this. Jesus said, "Go and make disciples." You watched them when they went out. And what did they do? They announced the Gospel. They chattered the Gospel. Those who believed, they gathered them together. They were called iglesias, churches sorry, ekklesias got my Spanish mixed in there or called out ones.

It was an assembly of people that were coming together. You see that all through the book of Acts. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul says, "One plants, another waters. God gives the increase." He talks about the ministry of planting. And it's in the context of churches. That's the second reason for planting churches. Third, the third one is that new and small churches grow and assimilate new people more easily than older, established churches.

For example, if you have a little church of 20 people, do you think a church can be a church if it only has 20 people? I think so. And let's suppose you would hear from the Lord and you would fast and pray and witness and you'd say, "This year, we purpose with God's help to add to grow by 25%. Let's get five more people." Would that sound doable? It does. But let's suppose you have a church of 300. To grow by 25% in one year, it would require how many people? Well, 10% would be 30, right? 30, 60.

You'd have to add 75 people in one year. Would you even be able to get 75 people into the building? And so, just to illustrate, new and small churches grow and assimilate new people more easily. It's in new churches, everybody is needed. We know why we're there. We know what our purpose is. We want to win more people. Fourth, studies have shown that church planting is necessary for denominations to survive.

When you hear of denominations working at merging together, typically, it's a sign of denominations that are dying. Denominations that are growing are not talking about finding the lowest common denominator in order to unite with everybody else. They're busy growing. But those churches that are waning and their members are aging you know, there are churches in this country that don't even have children. They don't hear the voice of any children disturbing the worship service on Sunday.

They haven't had them for years. So, if we want our movements to grow, we must be serious about church planting. One study says thus: "Every denomination reporting an increase in membership reported an increase in the number of congregations. Conversely, every denomination reporting an increase in the total number of congregations also recorded an increase in members." Now, the opposite is also true.

"Every denomination reporting a decrease in membership reported a decrease in congregations." So, I'm here to ask you this morning: Do we really want this movement, the Anabaptist movement, and the virtue is not in the name Anabaptist, but in being a back-to-the-Bible, Christ-focused, Bible-honoring and obeying movement? Do we really want it to survive? How much do we want it to survive? What price are we willing to pay for it to survive? If so, then we must be serious about planting new churches.

In the fifth place, we plant new churches because, in doing so, more people can participate, more gifts can be discovered, more workers can be developed. As churches get larger and I'm not against large churches -- I can't be because the first one in the New Testament grew to be very large -- Jerusalem, right? So, that's also a New Testament church as well. And the Lord did scatter them through persecution at some point. But as churches get larger, then you tend to specialize more.

You're going to pick the one who can lead the singing the best. You're going to pick the ones who can teach the best. And so on and on it goes. In small churches -- and I'm not arguing for doing things sloppily, carelessly -- but in small churches, it's all hands on deck. Everybody has to work. Everybody has to help. And in doing that, you discover gifts because Christ is in the business of giving gifts to people. Sometimes He gives gifts just for a short period of time, sometimes for a lifetime.

But He loves to give gifts to people. And we discover them in church planting situations because everybody is needed. That was number five. Number six, it is good to plant churches because church planting is an excellent way to reach ethnic minorities to reach ethnic minorities. There are approximately 160 distinct languages, living languages being spoken in the U.S. Actually, there are more languages than that. Did you know that in our country, 13% of the homes do not speak English? It might be Pennsylvania Dutch.

It might be French. It might be something else. They prefer something other than English. How are we going to reach those people? So, are we going to make sure that they all learn to speak English first before they can go to church? No, we need to find ways to reach the ethnic minorities by church planting. There are some in every ethnic group that love cultural mixes. They love to go in an ethnically multicultural congregation. But they are in the minority.

"Most birds of a feather like to worship together." Now, people of different ethnic backgrounds will agree to work at the workplace together. They have to to survive. But when it comes to worship, we prefer to worship in our heart language. Church planting is a great way to reach the ethnic minorities in this country. There are so many immigrants coming to our countries, both to Canada and to the U.S.

For us as Christians, instead of being afraid of that, we should see that as a goldmine of opportunity for reaching people from parts of the world where, if you would openly share the Gospel, you might be, at best, put in jail or, at worst, put in the graveyard. Here, we can freely reach them. We can share the Gospel with them. We can share a Bible with them. Church planting is a good way to reach ethnic minorities. Next, it is a field of ministry with few competitors. There'll always be plenty to do.

You don't have to worry about somebody taking your job. Let them take it. And you go off and you start another church. There is so much to be done. And in the process, you will grow exceedingly. Next, church life becomes very interesting when you have growth goals and new people coming into church. It's like welcoming a new baby into the family. For the first months, it turns everything upside down. And then you find your new normal again. But these babies are so precious and so wonderful.

And that's the way it is when new people come into our churches. And they see things in the Bible that we didn't see. And they ask questions we never thought of. And they have suggestions that we just it just never occurred to us. And it makes church life so much more interesting. To be able to come to church and see your neighbor there, you say, "Oh, I've prayed for my neighbor and he showed up today. Isn't that wonderful?" And you all rejoice together.

Ninth, church planting is an effective strategy for social, local, and national renewal. Now, we may choose to curse the growing darkness in our countries, as we see it, moral and theological darkness. But someone says, "Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle." Now, both France and Britain, according to historians, were ripe for violent revolutions. And France had one, a godless and bloody revolution. Religiously, France has still not recovered from that.

Over 80% of French people have never had a Bible or read from a Bible. Now, Britain, historians say, was equally ripe for revolution. But what did Britain have that France did not have? Britain had George Whitfield and John and Charles Wesley. Now, Whitfield preached to large crowds of thousands without microphone and won many to Christ. But what did John Wesley do? He preached to thousands also in the open air. But he gathered them in groups, which he called classes.

And then those began to develop and eventually became churches. And the churches eventually became the Methodist denomination movement. And so, historians say, if Britain would not have had the Wesleys, it would have had a revolution like France. Church planting is an effective strategy for the renewal of our nations as we gather disciples together and care for our communities. Tenth, church planting is a vision big enough and challenging enough for our young people and our young families.

Everybody needs a cause bigger than themselves for which to live. You see people rallying around all kinds of causes, like, "Let's ban plastic straws," and so on. But what about a cause that goes beyond this life? A cause that's connected to the Word of God and to the people of God, the church? This is big enough to make many sacrifices, to move our bodies around, to change our occupations. As the Bible says, "Without a vision, the people..."? "Perish." Another word that could be used there is the people scatter.

I'd like to give one more yet, though, reason for church planting. That is, church planting is a way to conserve our people as they move about for health, employment, education -- thank you -- and weather and so on. Our people are constantly on the move. They will always be on the move, looking for work, going for study, and so on. Where are they going to go to church? Why not be consciously at work to follow them, to equip them before they go, to support them as they do?

Why not train our people this way: "If you are going to move, find a faithful church or start one." Find a faithful church or start one. Now, when you drive through our cities in America -- and I'm not so well acquainted with Canada, so I'll speak for America -- you'll see Baptist churches. You'll see Methodist churches. You'll see some Presbyterians, congregational, Episcopalian churches. But the ones you'll see the most are Baptist and Methodist. Why? There was a reason for it.

As the frontier began moving west, the congregational churches, the Presbyterians, and the Episcopalians say, "Only those who have a seminary degree may be duly authorized and ordained to be pastors and priests." But what did Baptists and Methodists do? They had their circuit writing preachers. And they would go out and organize the frontiersmen. And they would choose somebody to be a lay preacher. And then the circuit writer would come around again and see how it was going and encourage them.

And eventually, the lay preachers became ordained preachers. Well, why do we not see as many Mennonite churches as we drive across the country? Oh, our roots went deep into that good soil. And the frontier got away from us. It's taking a while for us to catch up. Now, we are moving. We are scattering. The salt's being spread around. It's just that it takes us a while longer to get there. But we could be more creative. We could be more proactive. We could be more flexible. We could be more willing to take risks.

And we could see our churches being spread around the countries as the Baptists and Methodists did. Now, in the third place, I'd like to talk about a few mindsets that either hinder or encourage church planting in North America and beyond. First, the mindsets that hinder.

Here are some of them: "Well, the way we've always done it" or "Well, we've never done it that way before." Well, the apostles could have said that too in the Book of Acts: "We've never done it that way before." But no, they had the Holy Spirit who pushed them. And they had persecution to help them go. We could say, "Well, no one will accept our beliefs." Well, not everybody will. Jesus already said that. But some will.

You know, there are people that believe some really crazy stuff, like wearing holy underwear or, like, if your marriage is going to last in eternity, you have to get married in a certain temple. Or -- I'm speaking about the Mormons now -- you know, people will actually believe that. People believe strange things when the people who tell them those strange things really believe them. So, why wouldn't some people believe what we see in the Bible when we show it to them? Of course, they will. Some will.

Some will say, "Well, it's too far away." For example, one group in Alaska was asking for help. And they were told, "Well, you're too far away." Well, now we have the internet. We have economic plane travel. We have so many options that did not have in the past. Don't say it's too far away. Don't say that. Some say, "Well, there are too many churches already.

We've already looked at that." Some would say, "Well, we need to have a solid, substantial-sized group before we can start a church," like, maybe 50 or 75 or 100. You look in the New Testament. When Apostle Paul traveled about, he started from scratch. Couldn't we still do that today? Has the Holy Spirit stopped doing that? Others say, "Well, we might make some mistakes and fail." That's true. But you'll fail forward. You will have learned. And for sure, if you do nothing, you will have failed as well.

What will we say in the Judgment Day to Christ? "No, I didn't try because I was afraid I would make a mistake and fail." Of course, we'll make mistakes, but we'll learn from them. Someone would say, "Well, we don't need to say words. We just let people see our lives and then they'll get it." And sometimes, I even see quotes, approving quotes of Francis of Assisi, who says, "Do all you can to preach the Gospel and, if necessary, use words." Well, where did that come from?

We ought to say like this: "Do all you can to preach the Gospel and, whenever possible, use words." Because when the lost people look at good people, they don't think the Gospel. They just think, "I could never be like that." That must be their culture. That's the way they were born and bred. I have an Algerian friend who came to Christ. And when he went back to visit his people in Algeria, they were looking at a movie of the nickel mine shooting. And the Amish were forgiving the shooter.

And he heard his uncle say, "How -- how do they do that? That -- they just must be born and bred that way. That's their culture." They weren't getting it. And so, sinners don't get it. Dead people don't get it. So, we need to use words to explain the Gospel. Some would say, "Well, we don't have enough ordained leadership." Well, send out commissioned people. Send out lay people. And later on, you can ordain them, walk alongside them, and encourage them. Say, "Well, we don't have enough money.

We need to have a church building first." Well, I don't like to tell you this, but there are a lot of cheap church buildings across the U.S. and Canada. But don't think there first. Use your living room. You can get a lot of people in there, especially in the living rooms of many houses in North America. And once you got that full, then the locals who are joining you will help you get a building.

I heard one pastor say, "Well, this team that's going to go to a certain place, do they have a five-year plan?" A five-year plan? How do you do that in church planting? You might have been able to do it in your successful, large business, but I don't know how that works. Imagine telling Paul, "Paul, don't you go unless you first write out your five-year plan." All right. What are some mindsets that encourage church planting? First, Jesus will always be relevant.

And He will always be at work drawing people to Himself. He said so. If we point people to Him, He will attract people to Himself. He is building and He will build His church. And it didn't stop 100 years ago. He is still doing so. He already said, "The gates of hell, of death, shall not withstand the forward march of My church." It can't resist the ongoing movement of the Church of Jesus Christ. Here's another mindset: God wants lost people to be found and He wants to use us to find them.

He wants them to be found more than we want to be used to find them. He really wants to find lost people. You can use this mindset: Jesus commands us to make disciples. His commands are also promises. If He commanded it, He will also empower us to do so. Here's another one: God's will is God's bill. When you think about a church building, just use that one: God's will is God's bill. He'll provide for you. He'll provide for you to get there. He'll provide for you while you are there.

William Carey said in 1792, "Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." Bill Bright, as he started the Campus Crusade for Christ, said, "Success in witnessing is taking the initiative to share the Gospel in the power of the Spirit." And then you leave. You trust the results with Him. Leave it with Him.

Someone else said, and I don't know who said it: "The potential of any movement to grow is in direct proportion to its ability to mobilize its members to share its message." Whether it's Jehovah's Witnesses, whether it's Mormons, whether it's Amway, whether it's Communists, whether it's Plexus, you name it, they grow because they mobilize their people. We can mobilize our people to share the Gospel. Here's what a missionary in Cairo, Egypt, said. And when I read this, it convicted me.

He said, "I assume every Muslim I meet is open until he proves himself otherwise." And I thought, "Oh, Lord, have mercy on me. I assume people are closed until they prove themselves otherwise." And I would like us this morning to embrace this: Lord, help me to assume that every person I meet is open until he or she proves himself otherwise. Jesus said to His disciples who had gone to get lunch for Him, "Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are what?

White unto harvest." And so, when the disciples would have looked up, what would they have seen? They would have seen the Samaritans coming out of the town at the invitation of that lady, "Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Might he be the Christ?" And Jesus talked to them and they said, "We believe that You are the Savior of the world. Come and stay with us." And He stayed with them for a couple days more.

The disciples looked at the Samaritan and said, "Half-breeds, hard, rebels, heretics." Jesus said, "Look, a harvest that is white. White." How do we see people? How do we look at communities? Do we see them as hard or do we look at them as being ripe or potentially ripe? I'd like to conclude with this quote from Greg Livingston, who was the founder of the Frontiers Mission movement, focusing specifically on Muslims.

Here's his quote: "The history of missions is all about weak, barely competent people who believe the One who sent them could accomplish His purposes even through the likes of them. There are only two kinds of people in the world: the weak ones who make themselves available to God and the weak ones who don't." Are you making yourself available to Him? Let us pray that all across our churches in the U.S.

and Canada and down into Mexico and beyond, God will pour out again a mighty Spirit of personal witnessing, faithful disciple-making, courageous and creative church planting. He's done it before. He can do it again. Let us bow our heads to pray. Father in heaven, we lift up to You our great countries that are becoming increasingly spiritually and morally needy all around us. But, Father, You have people that You are calling to Yourself. And You have churches that You in mind that You want to be planted.

Here we are this morning, weak people, but we are willing. We are available however You want to use us. Do it for Your own pleasure, for the glory of Your name, for the fulfillment of Your promises, and for our own involvement and fulfillment and joy and fruit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.