Humanity is a complicated lot.
Any missionary will tell you there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with people. There are all kinds of people, which means there is a need for all kinds of churches.
When I first told people I was planting a church, the common response was, “Why do we need another church? There is one on every corner!” I saw the need for more churches in the United States, but at first I did not have a lot of hard data to back it up. I wanted hard data.
As I looked into it further, I learned that the need in North America is tremendous. Each year, a sizeable number of churches close their doors forever. An ever-increasing number of people are being left in the margins. What is more, advancing the Bride of Christ is one of the most beautiful things we could be a part of. When we understand our culture’s need for missional expressions of Christ’s bride, and we realize the joy of being able to participate in Christ’s Kingdom, we find a synergy that every believer should enter into.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 212,000 churches in 1900. In 1995, the number of churches in the U.S. was 345,406. “Although the number of churches has increased by just over 50 percent during the past century, the U.S. population has increased by 300 percent!” The proportion of churches to people is shrinking, and the number of people needing Jesus has grown tremendously.
“Win Arn reports 3,500 to 4,000 churches close each year.” The estimated number of church plants is less than half of that. Even if we planted one church for every church that closed, we would still have to deal with the fallout of the 60% failure rate in church planting.
We realize that the need is incredible, but we must believe that the gospel of Christ is bigger than the need. We can no longer see missions as simply across the globe, but must realize that it is also across town. We have to cling to our biblical convictions that the Church is the hope of the world when she lives in fidelity to Christ. It is time to answer the call to meet that need—planting churches while we awaken the churches that exist. The only question left to be answered is, will we?
(Quotes taken from Stetzer, Ed. Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003.)
