22 October 2011

Churches That Change Cities

In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, it's easy enough to get people to agree to follow Jesus and to plant churches. Shoot, several years ago, during a brief few weeks, US volunteers reported 80,000 professions of faith along the coast of Kenya, from Mombasa to Malindi — that's an area where Islam is prevalent. The difficulty is planting churches that make a difference.



Steve Sjogren, who blogs at ChurchPlanting.com, put up a post yesterday with some suggestions on how to plant churches that make a real difference in an urban area: How to Plant Churches That Change Cities. It's an interesting article. Here are his four main points:

  • Layer your city with acts of love
  • Preach the gospel with great love once they arrive
  • Take a vow of stability
  • Spin off daughter churches
He's writing from the perspective of a church planter in the U.S. and the methodology to which he alludes seems to be traditional church planting rather that one that is based around gathering small groups and using oral-preference methods like S-T4T. Still, the principles are valid.

  • How would you implement these principles in an African context?
  • Have you used any or all of these principles in your own church planting? What were the results?
For the Kingdom,
Bob A