Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). Jesus was clear that following Him meant far more than passively watching what He did. Following Him is a process of transformation. He offered His disciples a journey from just an “earning a living” mentality to becoming part of His mission for humanity. The transformation Jesus promised, to make His disciples into fishers of lost people, became a reality in their lives.
Churches need to focus seriously on the fact that it is not enough to welcome people into an enjoyable religious club. We are called to partner with Christ to change lives eternally. Jesus is the hope of the world, and He uses His church to spread that hope. If a church only offers to introduce people to Him without helping them become like Him, they fall far short of their purpose.
Time for planting
Hopefully, all fishers of men will come to a time when planting a church becomes necessary. The starting point of each church plant should be researching its target community. It could be, for example, a neighborhood or people group with commonalities, such as single parents, young adults, or a particular refugee group. Several ways exist to gather information about the needs of a particular group, including both online demographics and the services of companies specializing in detailed demographics. Hospitals have their own needs assessments that you can access, as well as community-focused groups such as the Better Business Bureau. While such sources are helpful, nothing can replace mingling with people and asking relevant questions such as, “What do you feel are the greatest needs of this community?” Approach people in public places like business owners, educators, first responders, community leaders, social workers, or anyone else in the community. Once you have 80 to 100 informed responses, organize the answers by themes to better understand what is needed.
The results are often eye-opening. A recent church plant in the Washington, DC, area was surprised to learn through surveys that the two greatest needs involved combating loneliness and help dealing with high student loan balances. They discovered that the city was teeming with students and workers from around the world, many interning for the government, lobbyists, and corporations.
Starting new churches in communities can provide more avenues to bring the gospel to people, especially those looking to explore a relationship with Christ or rekindle their spiritual life. Such churches can be more attractive than existing ones. However, certain often overlooked principles can greatly affect their missional impact. If added to your planting strategy, three things can be catalysts for maximizing evangelism results: understanding the community you are targeting, building a missional culture, and developing goals for members to become strong disciples. Such foundational principles can make a tremendous difference in the churches we start and their influence on the communities they serve.
Culture of understanding
If we plant churches that cater only to the already saved, we are not expanding God’s kingdom; rather, we are just making more places for those already Christians to congregate. Our focus must shift from serving the saints to finding ways to bring God’s love to those who have not yet experienced it. However, many of them have not yet shown an interest in what we are trying to share. Is there a solution to this disconnect?
Meeting real and felt needs has always created universal bridges from our churches to our communities. However, meeting the actual needs of new communities has eluded too many churches. Sadly, many congregations have drifted away from being missional in any meaningful manner. This is one reason we need plants that intentionally focus on mission and community.
Many churches have service projects based on the members’ gifts, preferences, or experiences. While that is better than doing nothing, it can easily overlook the issues most people face in a community. Imagine if Jesus approached helping people in the same way. Picture a person with leprosy falling before Him, begging for a miracle. Jesus looks at the leper with pity and then motions to one of His followers, “Give me your water canteen.” Handing it to the person with leprosy, Jesus says, “Take a drink and tell me what it is.” After sipping the contents, he replies, “It’s water, Lord.” Jesus then waves His hand over the container and instructs him to drink again, “What is in there now?” The leper takes a swallow and replies, “It’s now wine, my Lord.”
Jesus exclaims, “It’s a miracle!” Then he walks away, leaving the person with leprosy behind. If Jesus operated that way, He could rightly say He performed a miracle for the leper. But the obvious problem is that it was not the miracle that the person with leprosy needed. He was not looking for a large catch of fish; he did not ask for one of his servants to be healed. Instead, the leper had a specific need: to be freed of leprosy. When we serve our communities without learning what they really need, we may offer only what we want to give, not the truly needed service or healing.
Many churches spend time and resources advertising and posting on social media, hoping their community will become aware of them. But nothing will impact the lives, hearts, and attention of their community members more than knowing them first and meeting their actual needs in relevant ways. But we must also remember that just knowing about such needs does little for anyone if we do not move from learning to action. We can claim to know about the love of God, but becoming a living expression of His love has far more impact on lives.
Culture of selflessness
Once we understand those whom we will be serving, it is vital to build the DNA or culture of a new church to focus on that community. In church planting, we have the unique opportunity to purposefully design how we will act, serve, and be valuable. Every church has a specific culture, even if its members are not aware of it. Typically, this culture was formed unintentionally. Our biases, history, traditions, desires, and the world around us all can influence a young church’s formation. However, if we shift our focus away from ourselves and onto the harvest, we can intentionally build a church that significantly affects the lives of those whom we seek to reach. This is what building an intentional missional culture is all about.
Such a church understands that Christ’s mission is their mission. They must grasp that the church is not a place where members come just to be served; it is a place to serve. Thus, their focus in all they do goes beyond the membership and instead explores how they can touch the lives of those who have yet to discover the love of Christ. When developing ministries, they ask how each one will benefit their community, even if it is also aimed at the members.
Is the worship service helping a new visitor build a bridge from this world to the kingdom of heaven? The sermons should be deep and biblical while simultaneously comprehensible to those without a religious background. Greeting teams and members must be trained to ensure that spiritually curious guests feel wanted, welcomed, and valued. The new church should always keep in mind that the next person they encounter might not yet know Jesus. This perspective will then shape every ministry.
A church plant in Seattle targeting young adults found strategic ways to engage them both in the church and in the surrounding community through group activities and socials. The members hosted services on the local university campuses and provided practical training on transitioning into adulthood. The result was floods of young adults joining this exciting community.
Jesus did not leave the perfection of heaven to endure hardships or suffer abuse and death so that He could feel good about Himself. He sacrificed as He sought us and asks us to follow His example. Planting a missional church is not done at the expense of the saints but, rather, greatly benefits the saved in the process.
Culture of growth
Consumerism has a stranglehold on much of Western Christianity. People openly confess that they are “church shoppers”: “Who has the best preacher?” “Where can I find the music I like?” “Who has the best potlucks?” “Where can I find ministries to serve my family?” We have created this mindset within our churches because we choose attraction over transformation and fear losing people more than we fear that they will never mature spiritually. The church laments encroaching secularism when the cause can often be found within its walls.
Christ’s command is to “make disciples” (Matt. 28:19, NKJV), not to make members. Just as we witness clearly in the Gospels, discipleship is an intentional action—a life journey of becoming increasingly like our Lord. Each new church plant must have a clearly designed pathway toward discipleship for all who are willing to be Christ-followers. And when we help members begin loving and serving our communities, that new heart experience reflects its Creator.
Sharing Christ’s gift of loving salvation not only gives our neighbors an opportunity to meet their Savior but also builds us up as His disciples. If we ignore this, we are robbing those who need to find salvation as well as those who have accepted Christ but are spiritually stuck in neutral. Every church plant should relish the opportunity to share the good news while building devoted disciples for Him.
The reality is that many people are afraid to approach others with the gospel, feel unequipped to share their faith, or are afraid of rejection. To combat this, many new church plants find innovative ways to introduce their attendees with less threatening evangelistic endeavors. An easy entry event many are using today is handing out free water, soda, juice, ice cream, and/or balloons at gathering places like parks. They place a sign stating these items are free and include cards sharing that they are there to serve the community. Sports, outdoor recreation, or hobby events can be advertised on social media and apps such as Meetup and Eventbrite, leading to many connections with the community.
Jesus asks us to pray for workers for the harvest (Luke 10). Answering this prayer should be the blueprint of every church. When we start new congregations, we can build His body the way He is asking. Spending time learning about the people we will be serving, designing our ways of witnessing around who they are and their needs, and developing our members into missional disciples are key ingredients in building a healthy church body. When we plant for the harvest, we are growing the church of Jesus’ prayers.
