The forgotten movement: Church planting trends and lessons (Part 1 of 2)

“Upon all who believe, God has placed the burden of raising up churches.”¹ —Ellen G. White

At the inception of the Advent moveent, believers united to advance the cause of the gospel by entering new ter­ritory and starting new congregations. The Seventh-day Adventist Church experienced explosive growth, launch­ing a movement that spread and continues to advance across the world. Today, 150 years later, the time has come to ask, How are we doing with raising up new congregations to finish the harvest in North America?

To answer this question, we decided to look at statistics of the last century about church planting. We hope that the findings from this study will benefit the global church. Some divisions are grow­ing rapidly; others are not.² The North American population has multiplied, but has the church also multiplied to reach the rapidly growing populace?

Figure 1 presents our analysis of the population growth in the United States, Canada, and Bermuda³ and the net growth of Seventh-day Adventist Churches in the North American Division (NAD)⁴ in the last 100 years.⁵

Figure 1 shows that in 1913 there were 2,006 churches for 105 million people, but in 2011 we have 5,332 churches for 342 million people. While each church needed to influ­ence about 52,000 people in 1913, in 2011 each church needed to influence 64,000 people.

[ISee PDF for Figrue 1]

The data con­fronts the Church in North America with a staggering reality: we are not planting churches rapidly enough to keep up with population growth. Established churches alone will never be able to accommodate the needs of the fast-growing population, especially in areas without an Adventist presence.

Reaching the population is possible. In the last century, the average growth in the number of churches in North America has been 1.03 percent per year. This number is in harmony with church growth expert Lyle Schaller’s 1 percent rule. According to this rule, each year, any denomination should plant new congregations at the rate of 1 percent of their existing total for “maintenance,” to avoid decline. If a denomination wants to grow substantially, it must plant 2 to 3 percent per year.⁶

Figure 2 portrays what happens if approximately one in four churches plant a daughter church each decade. To illus­trate this in the Adventist context over the last century, we projected a 2.5 percent growth rate of the number of churches per year (25 percent per decade).⁷

Figure 2 shows that if we had adopted a 2.5 percent rule, in 2011 we would have had more than three times as many churches (18,682) and dropped the ratio to one church per 18,000 people. Through planting more churches, Seventh-day Adventists can improve the ratio of churches per population. Ratios are important because they reflect the number of people a church needs to influence in order to cooperate with God to fulfill the Great Commission. In other words, ratios identify the size of the mis­sion field of each church. Dan Serns, who has planted at least one church in every district he has pastored (Texas, Kansas, and Washington) and now pastors the Richardson Seventh-day Adventist Church in Texas, shared his vision: “I believe we need a vibrant Seventh-day Adventist congregation for every ten thousand people.”⁸ This is in harmony with what Kevin Ezell discovered in his research on the Southern Baptist denomi­nation: the church optimally thrives and grows when the ratio of churches to popu­lation drops below 10,000.⁹ Serns shared that new congregations are essential to expand the influence of the church for the kingdom of God.

[ISee PDF for Figrue 2]

Research of the ratios of Adventist churches per population for each decade revealed that while in some decades the church succeeded in lowering the ratio; the trend is falling behind.

A careful examination of the data in figure 3 reveals the following:

1. The best ratio was one church per 48,500 people in 1921.
2. The worst ratio was one church per 67,000 people in 1971.
3. There were four decades in which the ratio improved: 1910s, 1930s, 1970s, and 1980s.
4. The worst ratio in history (1971) was counteracted by a massive church planting movement in the 1970s that continued into the 1980s.
5. The current ratio (as of 2011)¹⁰ is one church per 64,000 people.
6. Today, the ratio is much closer to its worst in history than to its best.

Just as the Advent movement made great strides in church planting in the 1970s¹¹ to overcome the worst ratio in history, we need a massive church planting movement today. Established churches must be activated to plant churches that will, in turn, plant new churches. “As churches are established, it should be set before them that it is even from among them that men must be taken to carry the truth to others and raise new churches.”¹² This paradigm shift must happen in the church on all levels. We believe that any pastor, administrator, member, conference, and church can be part of the solution.

[ISee PDF for Figrue 3]

Figure 4 shows that if the Seventh-day Adventist Church had planted at the rate of 2.5 percent per year, the number of people each congregation would need to influence would be about 18,000. This number would begin to approach a far more manageable ratio for fulfilling the Great Commission in North America. Instead, the ratio today is 64,000 people for each church.

[ISee PDF for Figrue 4]

Interpreting the data

For the past century, the NAD has grown an aver­age of 35 churches per year. Taking into account the 59 con­ferences in the NAD, that is an average of about 6 churches per decade per con­ference. That means each conference has grown by about half a church (0.6) per year. This rate could be tripled if one additional pastor in each conference planted a church this next year.

The data reveals that Seventh-day Adventist church planting in North America is an excep­tion rather than an expectation. In the last decade, there was a net increase of 399 churches. If we assumed that each came from a distinct mother church, then this increase would suggest that only eight percent of churches in the NAD planted a church. That means 92 percent of churches in NAD have not planted within the last ten years. The potential for growth is almost unlimited! If even an additional 8 percent planted churches this decade, the year 2021 would see nearly 800 new Adventist congregations faithfully sharing Jesus with thousands who desperately need Him. The harvest in North America desperately calls for every Adventist to be involved in a mas­sive church planting movement.

In order to reach Schaller’s 2.5 percent growth rate in churches for the next decade in North America, we need to experience a net growth of 1,333 churches. That is an average of 133.3 churches per year. Divided between 59 conferences, that is an average of 2.25 churches per conference per year. It will require significant intentionality to move from 0.60 to 2.25 churches per conference per year. However, this mark is very achievable considering the top four conferences in church planting in the last decade averaged 5.15 churches and companies per year (see table 1). A massive church planting movement in North America is definitely within reach.

What could a church planting movement look like?

To gain a realistic understanding of what a massive Adventist church planting movement might look like, we conducted research to see where successful church planting is taking place in North America. To limit our research sample, we identi­fied and analyzed the top conferences in church planting in the last ten years.¹³ Only 4 out of 59 conferences showed a net increase of at least 45 churches and companies during that time.¹⁴

Renew or plant?

In our research, we discovered one of the greatest roadblocks to church planting is the need for renewal in the vast number of plateauing and declining Adventist churches in North America. Experts make the case that a lack of church planting is one of the major causes of decline.¹⁵ Ellen White mentioned that many churches and members who are dying spiritually would experience renewal by spread­ing out to reach new areas.¹⁶ Renewal comes by focusing on the mission, devel­oping disciples, and taking great steps out in faith. As the spiri­tuality of the church members increases, they naturally become more aware of the harvest around them and seek training (dis­cipleship) and structure (ministry and church planting) in order to reach them.¹⁷

Our study revealed that one of the best ways to experience church renewal is through planting another church. We believe that the Holy Spirit can lead any Adventist church to plant another within ten years, and many may be ready much sooner.

In the interviews we conducted, we could not find any mother church that suffered as a result of planting a church to reach the harvest. Contrarily, many examples showed that they were renewed and came away with more people and resources than ever before. Five years ago, the Hollywood Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church¹⁸ in Florida was meeting in a small rented facility and experiencing decline. They were “stuck in the same” every Sabbath until they experienced a reawakening to the needs around them. The leadership placed a new emphasis on mission and disciple­ship through preaching, education, and continually bringing the importance of reaching the community before the people. The church shifted their focus from inward to outward and decided as a church body that they were going to begin planting new congregations.

“As soon as they put their heart into mission, they started to grow and multiply,” shared Allan Machado, Hispanic coordinator for the Florida Conference.¹⁹ An Adventist business­man saw God at work and bought them a new five-million-dollar church building. After moving into the building, they struggled financially to maintain it. They decided to trust God and con­tinue planting new churches anyway. After five years, they have planted four churches and have worship services in English and Spanish. Their mem­bership today is close to 300, while the combined membership of all five churches is about 1,000. Hollywood Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church is one of many churches we studied that experienced renewal as they stepped out in faith through church planting.

The new movement

Beginning an Adventist Church planting movement in North America requires participation on all levels. Everyone has a role to play. “Upon all who believe, God has placed the burden of raising up churches.”²⁰

Our research of the top four confer­ences in church planting revealed that a variety of models were successfully implemented. Gerson Santos, vice president for the Greater New York Conference, noted, “The city is so diverse, that I don’t think we can have just one model.” The following models used by the top four conferences in the last decade illustrate the role that every level of the church can play in a massive church planting movement:

Top 4 Conferences in church planting, 2001-2011

Member initiated models:

1. Members start small groups at their houses that meet during the week and witness in their community. As the groups grow and multiply, one to four groups may combine and begin meet­ing Sabbath mornings for worship.
2. A Seventh-day Adventist group not connected to any church works with the conference and/or a mother church to organize as a company.

Mother church initiated models:

1. One mother church elects a leader and core group to work toward planting a daughter church.
2. Two or more churches work together to plant a daughter church.
3. A mother church “plants” by starting a new worship service (either at the same facility or a new location) in order to reach a new demographic.
4. A Sabbath School class grows and becomes a new church plant.
5. A church speaking one language plants a church that speaks another: Spanish planting English, English planting Portuguese, etc.
6. A church with elderly population hosts or plants a youth or children’s church.

Conference initiated models:

1. The conference focuses on an area where there is little or no Adventist presence and sponsors a church planter to begin working there.
2. The conference identifies a lay-pastor and works with them to establish a new church.
3. The conference creates a Center of Influence to reach a city. For example, the Greater New York Conference converted an Adventist Book Center downtown into a juice bar café where people meet to have a Bible study and fellowship at lunchtime as well as worship services on Sabbath.

These are a few of many examples of how every level of the church can get involved in a church planting move­ment. The common thread throughout all the conferences and churches we studied is that new church plants should be raised up to answer God’s mission. Successful church plants came out of a mission-driven consciousness, not out of conflict or dissension. All four conferences were very intentional, having allocated conference personnel and resources and developed strategic plans for church planting.

We discovered a correlation between church planting and member­ship growth. The top four conferences in church planting from 2001 to 2011 were above the NAD average (1.8 percent per year) in membership growth (Texas: 4.2 percent, Georgia-Cumberland: 2.8 percent, Greater New York: 2.4 percent, Florida: 2 percent). The significant numbers of baptisms and professions of faith per year in the top four conferences are evidence of the connection between church planting and evangelism (Texas: 2,279; Georgia-Cumberland: 1,130; Greater New York: 1,369; Florida: 2,365). All four conferences saw church planting as an invaluable key for reaching the harvest.

Reoccurring themes and lessons we learned

While the second part of this article will give more specific examples, we noticed some major recurring themes in our interviews and research. Here are some of the lessons we learned:

First, anything you do is better than nothing. Even talking about it or start­ing a new small group is a step forward in church planting. Once the concept has gained some momentum, you can work to identify and mentor the potential leaders.

Second, church planting is a result of making disciples. As people grow in their passion for God, they need new opportunities to use their energy and abilities in witness and service. A church plant provides abundant opportunities for involvement in ministry.

Third, lay-led planting was more common, effective, and affordable. The greatest investment you can make toward church planting is in the spiri­tuality and leadership development of a few key people.

Fourth, church planting creates synergy for both mother and daughter churches. Focusing on the mission and building new leaders brings renewal for the mother and equips the daughter. The churches that plant receive rich blessings and experience growth in number, health, and finances.

Fifth, conferences that implement an intentional church planting strat­egy experience significant growth. Effective strategies include appointing a church planting coordinator for the conference, recruiting and training lay leaders, coaching church planters, utilizing demographics studies, and allocating funds for special projects. 

Conclusion

The Seventh-day Adventist Church sprang up as a movement with the goal of fulfilling the Great Commission by rapidly entering new territory and raising new congregations. However, an evaluation of church planting over the last 100 years suggests that the church planting movement in North America has been largely forgotten. The challenge to reach the rapidly growing population in North America is great, but through the power of the Holy Spirit and intentionality among all levels of the church, the challenge is within reach. Planting new churches is essential for the growth and vitality of the Adventist church in all parts of the world. Every new church is a visible monument to God’s heart for humanity and able to reach distinct people groups and communities with the everlasting gospel. The vision for a massive church planting movement is daunting, but even a small step in that direction can be multiplied by the power of the Holy Spirit.²¹

(Part 2 will appear in the December 2014 issue).