Recently we had a congregational meeting to discuss the growing pains we are having here at GCC and to explain the decision to select an architect to provide a master plan for us. This master plan will help us see the next best steps for revamping our site to reach more people. We talked about ways to respond to the growing demand for our space on Sunday morning while continuing to welcome new people at GCC. I want to respond to one of the questions that came out of our meeting. Some people asked about planting another church rather than expanding our facility.
Church planting was last addressed at congregational meetings in 2009 when we were dealing with similar space issues. In reviewing that presentation, I realized a few things that we said then that are different now. One was that we would use church planting instead of building expansion as a strategy for reaching our area. Clearly, our Session has changed our strategy to one of pursuing facility expansion to allow GCC to host more people onsite. Ironically, back in 2009 there was more concern than support when it came to pursuing church planting as a means of addressing our space issues. I’m delighted that people are asking about church planting now.
We have not forgotten about church planting and we certainly are not opposed to it! I have been a church planter twice, and I was the first chairman of the church planting committee of our presbytery. In that role, I provided leadership to our church planting efforts in our region, and influenced several of the Blue Ridge Church plant efforts. I currently serve on the Session of our church plant in Culpepper. So it does my heart good to hear enthusiasm for church planting. I long for GCC to plant a healthy, thriving daughter church in the future.
The start of a new church has been described in agricultural language; we use the term church planting. When starting a church intentionally from an existing church, a better term to describe the process comes from human life: birthing. We desire to give birth to a daughter church. That means that there are two organic, corporate entities to consider in the process: the mother and the daughter. There are factors in both of these areas that led us to conclude that waiting to church plant (or birth) is a better direction for GCC for now.
Impact on the mother
Church planting is a great way to spread the influence of Jesus Christ to another part of our region. Great does not equal easy! One of our members thought that planting might be easier than constructing new buildings. Having been through two church plants and two building programs, I know that the word “easy” doesn’t apply to either of them. (I had hair before I started planting churches.) Both church plants and building programs are wonderful when things go well, but they are both a lot of hard work. Change and growth will involve pain, loss, grief, prayer, and perseverance.
There will be significant costs involved in starting another church. Money is only one piece of that. Often funds for church planting come from sources like the presbytery, the church planter’s donor network, and special fundraising efforts. Planting will cost us other precious resources besides money. It will affect our volunteer base and place additional burdens on our staff. Beyond that, there would be additional financial loss in the future. When the new church becomes independent, income from donors would solely go there instead of GCC.
These costs are not reasons to avoid church planting, but they are factors to pause for sober reflection. Are we ready to take that step now? The consensus among staff and officers in meetings over the last year or so suggest it is not time to take this step. We’ve come to the conclusion that having a stronger base from which to plant churches is a wiser approach at this time. This is one reason why we are having a new master plan created for our facility.
Health of the daughter
A second consideration in church planting is the daughter church herself. When we plant a church, we want to do so in a place where we believe a church can thrive and grow. As demographics in our area stand right now, two logical sites for a daughter church would be either 1) south toward Charlottesville (29N and Rio Road area), or 2) north of us toward Ruckersville (Greene Co. area). We currently have significant membership in both directions. Maybe in time God would call some of those families to participate in a new church plant?
The area north of us is intriguing for church planting. There is now a Walmart there, which means that the Walmart corporation is expecting big things out of that area. They do excellent research on demographics and regional growth. The current population base in that area however may suggest some difficulty in establishing a PCA church there now. A church with some similarities to ours tried to start a church there by establishing a second worship site. They weren’t reaching many people from the area, and decided to relocate their efforts. If Grace takes some time to strengthen and grow our ministry here at our current location, that could allow the Ruckersville area to grow and mature. It could give us a better opportunity to plant a thriving daughter church than we have currently.
In conclusion, our current sense as a Session is that there is wisdom in learning about the options for expanding our facilities. This will allow us to grow our base of disciples here, including more leaders and volunteers. From a stronger and healthier GCC, we can then proceed to send out families, along with a church planter, to start a healthy daughter church. When we recover from childbirth the first time, and fill up the spots that were vacated, we can see what opportunities there are at that time. Perhaps in the next ten years God could provide in such a way for us to have two daughter churches!
Will you join me in praying for our church? We are here to make disciples for Jesus Christ through relationships of love and support. This discipleship aims to produce worshippers in all of life, and witnesses in word and deed. The master planning process should aid us in our decisions for the next steps, but ultimately we continue to seek God’s leading about the best strategies for the future.
In Him,
Don