The question as we look to creating new churches will often come down to how will we afford it. Some like Urban Expression certainly attempt not to make this prohibitive to church planting by recruiting self-supporting ministers and finding creative ways of financing their ventures.
In the two church planting experiences I have had our support and resourcing has been very different. In the first we had loose connections with a network of churches via an informal relationship with another church. There was no financial help and very little of any other sort of support. This meant we all had full time jobs that kept us occupied mainly outside of the local area. My wife who was a full time mum was the only member of the team who really made any strong relationships outside of the immediate team. The rest of us failed to get involved in the local community. This was a major contributing factor for us not succeeding to get anything going there.
My second experience has been very different, I am employed by a mother church and I am accredited as a Baptist Minister. This has meant we have been supported financially, prayerfully and practically. It has meant that my children have had somewhere to relate to where they have formed relationships with other children with similar values and beliefs.
If I am honest I struggle with the tension of being part of an institution, in my case the Baptist Union. Any denomination can at best be slow to respond to a move of the Spirit and at worst totally stifle it. To varying degrees the organic nature and charismatic disposition of the local church will be affected by its relationship to a denomination.
In having a mother church there have been for us more tensions than our relationship with the wider Baptist Union. I have to say we have been given a lot of freedom without which I’m not sure we could have made progress in the estate. However when a group is investing a significant sum of money into a project there is almost inevitably going to be a reminder that they hold the power when decisions you make as a dependent group are overruled. This has not happened very often but even a few times creates some friction.
On balance I would say there are more pro’s than cons to being part of a bigger organisation. There are the resources that you can call on, financial and otherwise. There are necessary checks and balances, for example it is easy for an enthusiastic pioneer to forget important administrative tasks such as an adequate child protection policy, but we have been reminded and helped in forming such policies. Whilst I recognise it doesn’t always happen, at its best when things don’t work out it is good to have support that helps you reflect on what went wrong in order that everyone can learn and move on positively.
I also think those working on the edge in forming new missional churches have opportunity to share what they have learnt with a wider audience. I think the tension that often exists between pioneers and the established institution can be creative on both sides, but particularly for the denomination who are pushed to think missionally and not just settle into maintenance mode. In order to do this we need to resist the pressure to be moulded by the inherited church. We need to recognise that not only do we have an important message for those outside the church, but also a message for the church itself!
