As I was looking through J.D. Payne’s book Discovering Church Planting: An Introduction to the Whats, Whys, and Hows of Global Church Planting I came across a sidebar which lists “some benefits of being a mother church.” Though this is by no means an exhaustive list, it does draw out some important benefits of being a church dedicated to planting. This topic is close to my heart these days as my church prepares to send out some of our members to plant a new church on the east side of Toronto.

Here is the list:

At least thirteen things (the “lucky thirteen”) happen within sponsoring churches when those churches become actively involved in planting new churches.

1. Sponsoring keeps the church fresh and alive to its mission and vision and challenges the church’s faith.
2. Sponsoring reminds the church of the challenge to pray for the lost.
3. Sponsoring enables the church to welcome other people into the kingdom that it would not otherwise have assimilated.
4. Sponsoring creates a climate open to birthing a variety of need-meeting groups within the sending church.
5. Sponsoring provides evangelistic vitality and activity.
6. Sponsoring encourages the discovery and development of new and latent leaders.
7. Sponsoring encourages coaching, mentoring, and apprenticeship in ministry while providing a renewed understanding of how we are all part of a team effort.
8. Sponsoring provides an occasion for church members to get to know missionaries personally.
9. Sponsoring builds on the past and insures the future.
10. Sponsoring minimizes the tendency toward a self-centered ministry.
11. Sponsoring provides an education in missions and serves as a stimulus for young people’s dedication to Christian service.
12. Sponsoring provides a visible proof that God is still working through people and that some are responding to his commission to go out and evangelize.
13. Sponsoring provides a new opportunity for personal involvement in missions.

The list is taken from Spin-off Churches: How One Church Successfully Plants Another by Harrison, Cheyney and Overstreet. I haven’t read the book, so can’t comment on whether it’s worth the purchase.

I have received quite a few books about church planting over the past few months. Among the more interesting have been Church Planting Is for Wimps by Mike McKinley and Discovering Church Planting by J.D. Payne. Fresh off the press is Darrin Patrick’s Church Planter: The Man, The Message, The Mission. Patrick is vice president of the Acts29 Church Planting Network and the founding pastor of the Journey Church in St. Louis. From those vantage points he has seen church planting up-close and personal while also assisting and guiding many other pastors as they have sought to plant churches. He is well-qualified to write about this subject. His book comes highly recommended and is endorsed by a long list of notables.

The book’s contents are divided into three sections: The Man, The Message and The Mission (as you may have guessed). In the first part Patrick describes the kind of man God is looking for, saying that he is to be rescued, called, qualified, dependent, skilled, shepherding and determined. This gives a well-rounded understanding of the kind of character that should mark a man who seeks to step out and plant a church. He covers the biblical qualifications as laid out particularly in the pastoral epistles, but he goes further as well, looking to practical considerations along with other spiritual qualifications.