I think you are correct about what normally happens. The only way something different from this would happen is if the church planters are very intentional about changing their social structures. Otherwise the models being proposed have no real advantages.Soloist wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 10:13 amI'm not sure I see planting a church on the edge of a community to be a good thing. I understand the idea but what I see happening is that the separation occurs only for Sunday service but for other activities they still are invested in their social network they already have. How do the churches in foreign countries deal with the same problem? Is it the mindset about what they are doing? Perhaps we look at a church plant as just another place to go while a church plant in a foreign land has more implications and people are more intentional about reaching out?Ernie wrote: ↑Mon Jan 31, 2022 8:54 am I’ll diverge a bit into church planting here… but hospitality is at the center of effective church planting IMO.
My church planting model keeps getting refined, and one of the things I'm learning is that if those who are attempting to start a new church do so without spiritual, emotional, social support (and financial support if needed) the "burned feeling" can be much more discouraging. A few families who strike out on their own to start a new church can get burned out fairly quickly, especially if the team dynamics struggle significantly.
Here are a couple models that seem better than some others for small church planting teams ...
1. Start the new church on the edge of the community. This allows the church planters to have some social interaction with people from the home church, until converts are contributing socially to the health of the church.
2. If needing to relocate to start a new church, consider sending a minimum of 6 families, but plan to start two or three fellowships in the same general area.
Several benefits to this. If the six families meet together, they don’t really need anyone else to join the church in order to have a sense of community and sustainability. Its also harder to integrate newcomers into a “foreign” culture since the new comers are in the minority. If six families start two or three assemblies, they can consider themselves sister assemblies but one church. The church planters can focus on a vision that fits their small assembly, while still benefitting from social interactions with the other church planting families. There is less need for furloughs, and if one of the small teams can’t make it for some reason, there is still “the church” to relate to and the possibility of regrouping into more a workable arrangement.
The problem with churches composed of 2 families each is the obvious implications of authority structure as well as how exactly to integrate someone from the community. Wouldn't the 6 families still end up spending their social time with each other rather then the time and investment into others? Who would they seek council from? a fellow new member of a few years? or the fellow church goer of 30 years just across town?
I personally think that 6 families is a good starting size for a church but I'm not sure I'd want to see it smaller for a number of reasons. Of course you are not envisioning a traditional church with standards and if you are, I see that two men making a church is a recipe for disaster.
If two men "making a church" are not mature and not under the oversight of wise and discerning elders, yes, it could be a disaster.
And yes, for some reason it is hard to get Americans to think about church planting in America, in a manner similar to the way it is done in foreign indigenous church planting endeavors.