CHURCH

PLANTING
MOVEMENTS
CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS
David Garrison

Office of Overseas Operations

International Mission Board
of the Southern Baptist Convention
P.O. Box 6767 • Richmond, VA 23230-0767
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ............................................1

INTRODUCTION .........................................3

CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS A CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENT? ..............7

CHAPTER 2 CPMS UP CLOSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

CHAPTER 3 TEN UNIVERSAL ELEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

CHAPTER 4 TEN COMMON FACTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

CHAPTER 5 TEN PRACTICAL HANDLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

CHAPTER 6 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

CHAPTER 7 OBSTACLES TO CPMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

CHAPTER 8 TIPS FOR FINE-TUNING A CPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

CHAPTER 9 A CPM VISION FOR THE WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
PREFACE
his book began as an assignment to profile the growing num-

T ber of Church Planting Movements that are appearing in our

work around the world. As the International Mission Board’s
associate vice president for strategy coordination, I was given
responsibility to describe the qualities and characteristics of this
phenomenon.
To accomplish this, I sought input from a wide range of mis-
sionaries, members of regional leadership teams, missiologists,
researchers and mission administrators. My primary sources were
missionaries who have been personally involved in Church
Planting Movements. These individuals have been an invaluable
resource in the development of this book.
I’m grateful for the visionary leadership of the International
Mission Board’s Senior Executive Team—Jerry Rankin, Avery
Willis and Don Kammerdiener—and to my colleagues on the
Overseas Leadership Team: Sam James, Bill Bullington and John
White. Their encouragement and counsel along the way have
been indispensible.
Special thanks go to missionary practitioners and Church
Planting Movement pioneers: Bill and Susan Smith, Curtis and
Debie Sergeant, Bruce and Gloria Carlton, David and Jan Watson,
Kurt and Wendy Urbanek, Jim and Mary Slack, Scott and Janie
Holste, Rodney and Debbie Hammer, Don and Anne Dent,
George and Sheryl Gera, and Dale and Jane Ellen Wood. The book
also benefited from the reading and counsel of numerous other
individuals including Sonia Garrison, Beth Wolfe, Cathy Kissee,
Erich Bridges, Vivian White, Dan Allen and Jim Haney.
Despite the generosity of these contributors and editors, the

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 1 PREFACE

errors remain my own and I take responsibility for them. My
hope is that this book will serve as a reliable profile of what we
mean when we say it is our vision to “begin and nurture Church
Planting Movements among all peoples.”

David Garrison
Associate Vice President
Strategy Coordination and Mobilization
International Mission Board, SBC
Wiesbaden, Germany
October 1999

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 2 PREFACE

INTRODUCTION
rom every corner of the globe the reports are coming in. Only

F a few at first, but now more and more frequently, reinforcing

one another with their startling accounts of hundreds, thou-
sands, even tens of thousands coming to faith in Christ, forming
into churches and spreading their new-found faith.
Southeast Asia
When a strategy coordinator began his assignment in 1993,
there were only three churches and 85 believers among a popula-
tion of more than 7 million lost souls. Four years later there were
more than 550 churches and nearly 55,000 believers.
North Africa
In his weekly Friday sermon, an Arab Muslim cleric com-
plained that more than 10,000 Muslims living in the surrounding
mountains had apostatized from Islam and become Christians.
City in China
Over a four-year period (1993-1997), more than 20,000 people
came to faith in Christ, resulting in more than 500 new churches.
Latin America
Two Baptist unions overcame significant government persecu-
tion to grow from 235 churches in 1990 to more than 3,200 in 1998.
Central Asia
A strategy coordinator reports: “Around the end of 1996, we
called around to the various churches in the area and got their
count on how many had come to faith in that one year. When they
were all added up, it came to 15,000 baptisms in one year. The pre-
vious year we estimated only 200 believers altogether.”

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 3 INTRODUCTION

Western Europe
A missionary in Europe reports: “Last year (1998), my wife
and I started 15 new church cell groups. As we left for a six-
month stateside assignment last July, we wondered what we’d
find when we returned. It’s wild! We can verify at least 30
churches now, but I believe that it could be two or even three
times that many.”
Ethiopia
A missionary strategist commented, “It took us 30 years to
plant four churches in this country. We’ve started 65 cell churches
in the last nine months.”
Every region of the world now pulsates with some kind of
Church Planting Movement. Sometimes we see only the num-
bers, but often they are accompanied by lively descriptions such
as this recently received e-mail message: “All of our cell church-
es have lay pastors/leaders because we turn over the work so
fast that the missionary seldom leads as many as two or three
Bible studies before God raises at least one leader. The new
leader seems to be both saved and called to lead at the same time,

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 4 INTRODUCTION

so we baptize him and give him a Bible. After the new believ-
ers/leaders are baptized, they are so on fire that we simply can-
not hold them back. They fan out all over the country starting
Bible studies, and a few weeks later we begin to get word back
how many have started. It's the craziest thing we ever saw! We
did not start it, and we couldn't stop it if we tried.”

Over a four-year period (1993-1997),

more than 20,000 people came
to faith in Christ, resulting in
more than 500 new churches.
Beyond the passion and excitement, many missionaries are left
with questions. Most have never seen a Church Planting Move-
ment. But the allure of an entire people group coming to Christ is
the dream of every missionary. The thought that countless thou-
sands might be waiting to hear and respond to the gospel is a pas-
sion that fires missionary hearts and minds around the world.
So what is a Church Planting Movement? What is this phe-
nomenon that has so captivated us? Where are these Church
Planting Movements taking place? Why are they happening now?
Is this something new or have they always been with us? What
causes them? Are they all random events or do they share some
common traits? Is there anything we can do to encourage them?
A growing number of missionaries and strategists are asking
these hard questions and seeking to understand the nature of
these Church Planting Movements. Hard questions are leading to
helpful answers. These questions and answers are the subject of
this book.
To extract these insights, we asked a number of missionaries,
strategy coordinators and individuals who have had personal
experience with Church Planting Movements to reflect on their
shared experiences and then process them in a forum that invited
critique and analysis. Through their eyes, we have attempted to
isolate the key elements that make up this phenomenon as well
as those impediments that prevent a Church Planting Movement
from occurring. We also tasked them with providing practical
steps for initiating and nurturing Church Planting Movements.
The author is deeply indebted to these missionary colleagues.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 5 INTRODUCTION

 The purpose of this book is to: 1) define Church Planting
Movements; 2) identify their universal characteristics; 3) examine
common obstacles to Church Planting Movements; 4) analyze a
wide range of actual case studies; 5) provide some practical han-
dles for beginning and nurturing Church Planting Movements;
and 6) address some frequently asked questions (FAQs) about
Church Planting Movements.
Case studies and illustrations used in this book come from all
over the world. Some have been gathered from open countries
where there are few official barriers to gospel proclamation.
Others originate in places where Christianity is persecuted or
even forbidden. We dare not exclude these Church Planting
Movements from our review, but we will need to obscure the
names and places in order to protect those involved.
This book is not made up of theories that we are trying to
prove, nor is it a template that we forced over different kinds of
situations. These are descriptions of what we have seen and
learned. The principles have been deduced from actual Church
Planting Movements by those involved in them. To provide as
accurate a picture as possible, we’ll tell you which characteristics
occur frequently and which ones are unusual.
We pray that this booklet will serve as a useful resource for
missionaries and evangelical friends the world over, as we all
seek to understand what God is doing and how to position our-
selves to be on mission with Him as He unfolds Church Planting
Movements among all peoples.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 6 INTRODUCTION

1 WHAT IS A CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENT?
n 1998, the International Mission Board’s Overseas Leadership

I Team adopted a vision statement: We will facilitate the lost com-

ing to saving faith in Jesus Christ by beginning and nurturing
Church Planting Movements among all peoples. This vision state-
ment guides the work of nearly 5,000 IMB missionaries serving
in more than 150 countries around the world.
So, what is a Church Planting Movement? A simple, concise
definition of a Church Planting Movement (CPM) is a rapid and
exponential increase of indigenous churches planting churches within a
given people group or population segment.
There are several key components to this definition. The first
is rapid. As a movement, a Church Planting Movement occurs

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 7 CHAPTER 1

with rapid increases in new church starts. Saturation church
planting over decades and even centuries is good, but doesn’t
qualify as a Church Planting Movement.
Secondly, there is an exponential increase. This means that the
increase in churches is not simply incremental growth—adding
a few churches every year or so. Instead, it compounds expo-
nentially—two churches become four, four churches become 16
and so forth. Exponential multiplication is only possible when
new churches are being started by the churches themselves–rather
than by professional church planters or missionaries.
Finally, they are indigenous churches. This means they are
generated from within rather than from without. This is not to say
that the gospel is able to spring up intuitively within a people
group. The gospel always enters a people group from the outside;
this is the task of the missionary. However, in a Church Planting
Movement the momentum quickly becomes indigenous so that
the initiative and drive of the movement comes from within the
people group rather than from outsiders.
If this definition isn’t enough, we might also clarify what a
Church Planting Movement is not. A Church Planting Movement
is more than “evangelism that results in churches.” Evangelism
that results in churches is a part of a Church Planting Movement,
but the “end-vision” is less extensive. A church planter might sat-
isfy himself with the goal of planting a single church or even a
handful of churches, but fail to see that it will take a movement of
churches planting churches to reach an entire nation of people.

A Church Planting Movement is a rapid and

exponential increase of indigenous churches
planting churches within a given
people group or population segment.

A Church Planting Movement is also more than a revival of

pre-existing churches. Revivals are highly desirable, but they’re
not Church Planting Movements. Evangelistic crusades and wit-
nessing programs may lead thousands to Christ, and that’s won-
derful, but it isn’t the same as a Church Planting Movement.
Church Planting Movements feature churches rapidly reproduc-
ing themselves.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 8 CHAPTER 1

 Perhaps the closest thing to a Church Planting Movement,
that still is not a Church Planting Movement, is when local church
planters are trained and deployed to plant multiple churches
among their own people. This is a highly productive method of
spreading churches across a population segment or people group,
but the momentum remains in the hands of a limited group of
professional church planters rather than in the heart of each new
church that is begun.
Finally, a Church Planting Movement is not an end in itself.
The end of all of our efforts is for God to be glorified. This occurs
whenever individuals enter into right relationship with Him
through Jesus Christ. As they do, they are incorporated into
churches which enable them to continue to grow in grace with
other like-minded believers. Any time people come to new life in
Jesus Christ, God is glorified. Any time a church is planted—no
matter who does it—there are grounds for celebration.
So why is a Church Planting Movement so special? Because
it seems to hold forth the greatest potential for the largest number
of lost individuals glorifying God by coming into new life in
Christ and entering into communities of faith.
However, a Church Planting Movement is not simply an
increase in the number of churches, even though this also is pos-
itive. A Church Planting Movement occurs when the vision of
churches planting churches spreads from the missionary and pro-

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 9 CHAPTER 1

fessional church planter into the churches themselves, so that by
their very nature they are winning the lost and reproducing them-
selves.
Let’s review some key points. Missionaries are capable
church planters, but will always be limited in number. Local
church planters hold more promise, simply because there is a
larger pool of them available. Church Planting Movements hold
an even greater potential, because the act of church planting is
being done by the churches themselves, leading to the greatest
possible number of new church starts.
To better understand Church Planting Movements, let’s
examine a few case studies and then dissect them for closer
analysis.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 10 CHAPTER 1

2 CPMS UP CLOSE
nternational Mission Board missionaries are currently engaged

I in a number of Church Planting Movements and near-Church

Planting Movements around the world. While each of these
movements bears the influence of our missionaries, each is dif-
ferent as well.
Despite these differences, there are common traits that char-
acterize almost every CPM. In the examples that follow, you will
see how several IMB missionaries came to be involved in CPMs.
Some were instrumental in the movement from its inception,
while others arrived after the movement was well under way. In
each case, there are lessons we can learn that may be transferable
to other situations.

A Latin American People Group

The setting
Like many other Latin American countries, this one has a
mixed population of European, Hispanic and African descent.
Decades of authoritarian rule have stifled economic progress and
limited individual freedoms. The country is poor, but relatively
well-educated compared to other countries in the region, with a
literacy rate of more than 90 percent.
Traditionally, the population has been more than 95 percent
Roman Catholic. For more than 25 years, however, the govern-
ment attempted to suppress religious freedom. Then, in 1991, the
government eased up and began to liberalize its economy and
posture toward religion. Religious freedom still is not a protected
right, but conditions are improving.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 11 CHAPTER 2

 Southern Baptists began missionary work in the country
more than a century ago. Over the next 75 years, missionaries
planted churches, trained leaders and developed a local Baptist
union consisting of about 3,000 members. Following a military
coup, all missionaries were imprisoned and then expelled from
the country. Along with them went half of the local Baptist mem-
bership and much of the church leadership. The next few decades
threatened to eliminate the church from the country. Persecution,
imprisonment and torture were widespread. During this time of
opposition, the number of believers slowly increased.

What happened
Due to separate American and Southern Baptist mission
efforts, the Baptists in the country developed into a northern
union and a southern union. Despite this separation, both unions
experienced Church Planting Movements during the 1990s.
By 1989, the northern union had a membership of roughly
5,800. That same year, they began to experience an awakening as
membership climbed 5.3 percent and then 6.9 percent the follow-
ing year. By the end of the 1990s, the northern union’s member-
ship had grown from 5,800 to more than 14,000. Over that same
period, the number of churches increased from 100 to 1,340. At
last report, there is little sign of this growth slowing down.
Currently, more than 38,000 regular participants in the churches

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 12 CHAPTER 2

are awaiting baptism.
Similar developments were also unfolding in the southern
union. In 1989, they had 129 churches with a membership of just
under 7,000. With 533 baptisms recorded that year, they were
showing signs of vitality. By 1998, their membership had risen to
nearly 16,000 with annual baptisms of almost 2,000. The number
of churches increased during the same period from 129 to 1,918,
a remarkable 1,387 percent growth rate for the decade.

Key factors
Several factors contributed to the CPM in this Latin American
country. Foreign missionaries played several very strategic roles.
The first came when missionaries introduced the gospel to the
country for the first time. They firmly grounded the new churches
on the Word of God and the priesthood of all believers. However,
when a change in government forced the missionaries to leave,
Christianity had a choice: Become indigenous or die. Over the
next few years, the country’s isolation from outside Christian
contact furthered the indigenization process by minimizing the
possibility of foreign funds for buildings or pastoral subsidies.
During these years of isolation, media missionaries working
outside the country saturated the land with gospel radio broad-
casts in the people’s Spanish heart language. Missionaries and
diaspora Christians also maintained a steady vigil of prayer for
the believers and the lost living inside the country.
When IMB mis-
sionaries reconnect- 2250
ed with the churches 2000 1,918
in the late 1980s, 1750
they found a Baptist
1500
faith that was deeply 1,306
rooted in the nation. 1250 1,174
At this point, the 1000
missionaries made a 750
second strategic con-
500
tribution by feed-
ing the movement 250 129
through prayer, dis- 0
1989 1995 1997 1998
cipleship, leadership
training and work- Southern Union Churches

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 13 CHAPTER 2

shops on evangelism and cell church methodology—without cre-
ating dependency or imposing a foreign flavor on the movement.
Several other factors and characteristics contributed to the
movement. From the beginning, Scripture and worship were in
the heart language of the people. Undergirded by the high literacy
rate, the Bible became a center of both corporate and private
spiritual life.
Prayer was also a key component. Baptists in this movement
described themselves as a “people on their knees.” Prayer con-
tinues to saturate their worship and daily life. They are also a

1500
1,340
1350
1200 1,144
1050
929
900 845

750
600 545
450
450
300
155
150 95 100 106

0
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

Northern Union Churches

people who love to sing. Worship services resound with lively
hymns and songs of praise in the heart language. One church
leader described music as “a form of warfare against an unbe-
lieving world.”
An important challenge occurred with the severe economic
crisis of 1992, which prevented church members from traveling
significant distances to their church buildings for worship. Once
again, the movement was at a crossroads: They could resign
themselves to a churchless faith, or respond creatively to the chal-
lenge. Baptists chose the latter as they moved their meetings into
homes and found that growth greatly accelerated. Once again,
Baptist missionaries played a strategic role by introducing cell
church models used in other parts of the world. During the first

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 14 CHAPTER 2

year (1992-93), the northern convention alone started 237 house
churches.
Across the country, the crumbling economy and uncertain
political future created an environment that was ripe for new
answers and directions. It was less and less difficult or even nec-
essary to speak to people of lostness; everything around them
spoke of hopelessness and despair.
Within this turmoil, Baptist leaders urged their flock to
adopt a missionary zeal for reaching their entire nation. The laity
responded enthusiastically. In the mid-‘90s, the northern union
began a Lay Missionary School to provide a one-year training
program for lay evangelists. By 1998, there were 110 graduates
and 40 more enrolled. Between them, the two unions have
deployed nearly 800 home missionaries across the country. In
the past two years, union leaders report that “hundreds are now
expressing a call to missions within their own country.” The
Church Planting Movement in this country is now poised to
impact other nations across Latin America and throughout the
world.

Unique factors
Though God is clearly doing a remarkable work in this Latin
American country, some shadows hover over the movement. At
last report, more than 38,000 faithful participants in the churches
of the northern union had not yet been baptized. A further 2,800
candidates were enrolled in baptismal classes. Why the delayed
baptism of new members?
A union leader explained, “Before our country closed its
doors to missionaries, churches in America assisted us in the
building of six structures. Twenty years ago, one of our church-
es had a heated dispute over some theological matter (long since
forgotten) which resulted in a split and the loss of our building.
Since that time, we have learned to be cautious in allowing out-
siders to become full-fledged members, lest they take our
remaining buildings from us as well.”

Learning points
1. The shift to house churches coincided with an enormous
increase in church growth. It freed the church from physical
limitations and thrust the gospel witness into the community.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 15 CHAPTER 2

2. Union leadership helped to set the direction and encourage
the house-church movement, even though it meant a dimin-
ished measure of control for them.
3. Persecution weeded out those who were not serious follow-
ers of Christ. At the same time, a strong Baptist doctrine of
the priesthood of the believer ensured the survival of the
church when other, more hierarchical churches were crushed.
4. IMB missionaries played key roles in introducing the gospel;
encouraging a CPM vision; introducing cell-church method-
ology and shielding the movement from dependency on for-
eign funds.
5. Mobilized and trained lay missionaries have been key in
spreading the movement across the country.

A Region in China
The setting
China in the early 1990s was reeling from enormous social
upheaval. Economic boom had left gross disparities between the
haves and have-nots. Rapid urbanization was dismantling ancient
family and communal alliances. The entire country anxiously
awaited a successor to the Maoist doctrines which had held the

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 16 CHAPTER 2

collective mind for almost four decades.
New ideas were sweeping through the country and were
viewed with a mixture of enthusiasm and rejection. The sup-
pressed student democracy movement, culminating in the clash
with government forces in Tiananmen Square in 1989, had left
many youth despairing of political reform, yet still searching for
some new hope for a better future.

What happened
Into this setting the International Mission Board assigned a
strategy coordinator in 1991 to a region we’ll call Yanyin. During
a year of language and culture study, the missionary conducted
a thorough analysis of Yanyin. It consisted of about 7 million
people clustered in five different people groups living in a vari-
ety of rural and urban settings. He mapped their population
centers and began several evangelistic probes. After a few false
starts, the strategy coordinator developed a reproducing model
of indigenous church planting that he implemented to great
effect.
In his initial survey, the strategy coordinator found three
local house churches made up of about 85 Han Chinese
Christians. The membership was primarily elderly and had been
slowly declining for years with no vision or prospects for
growth. Over the next four years, by God’s grace, the strategy
coordinator helped the gospel take fresh root among this people
group and sweep rapidly across the Yanyin region.
Aware of the enormous cultural and linguistic barriers that
separated him from the people of Yanyin, the missionary began
by mobilizing Chinese Christian co-laborers from across Asia.
Then, partnering these ethnic Chinese church planters with a
small team of local believers, the group planted six new churches
in 1994. The following year, 17 more were begun. The next year,
50 more were started. By 1997, just three years after starting, the
number of churches had risen to 195 and had spread throughout
the region, taking root in each of the five people groups.
At this point the movement was spreading so rapidly that
the strategy coordinator felt he could safely exit the work with-
out diminishing its momentum. The next year, in his absence, the
movement nearly tripled as the total number of churches grew to
550 with more than 55,000 believers.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 17 CHAPTER 2

Key factors
Since his departure from the Yanyin assignment in 1997, the
strategy coordinator has given considerable attention to examin-
ing the factors that enabled this Church Planting Movement to
develop so rapidly. We are all the beneficiaries of this analysis,
which I will relate in abbreviated form here.
As with so many
assignments, the Yan- 600
550
yin ministry was 500
bathed in prayer even
400
before its inception.
What began as a per- 300

sonal belief in the effi- 195

200

cacy of prayer became 100 76

a part of the DNA of 3 9 26
0
the new Church 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
Planting Movement
as the early believers Yanyin Churches
emulated the model
of the missionary.
Training and structure were key elements in the initiation
and rapid rise of this movement, as was the practice of “response
filtering.” Response filtering is the practice of using some large-
scale evangelism tool, such as video, radio or other mass outreach
tools, coupled with a “feedback loop” or filtering mechanism that
allows the evangelist to glean from the proclamation those who
are interested in receiving further contact. In this manner, seed-
sowing is almost always linked to some attempt to “draw the
net” and gather inquirers into a Bible study aimed at a new
church start.
Let’s take a closer look at the training and structure
employed by the missionary. The strategy coordinator began
with a small core of believers whom he discipled and then
trained in basic church planting methods. The missionary calls
his church planting method a POUCH approach. POUCH is an
acronym. P stands for participative Bible study/worship groups,
describing the type of cell group meetings through which seekers
are led to faith and new believers continue as church afterwards.
O refers to obedience to God’s Word as the sole measure of an indi-
vidual’s or church’s success. U refers to unpaid and multiple lay

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 18 CHAPTER 2

or bi-vocational church leaders. C stands for cell churches rarely
exceeding 15 members before reproducing into new groups. H
indicates homes or storefronts as the primary meeting places for
these cell churches. Each of these five characteristics contributed
to the reproducibility of the churches in a manner that did not
rely upon outside funding, technology or initiation.
The strategy coordinator instilled in these initial converts a
vision for reaching all of Yanyin with the gospel. He shared with
them his research on where the various unreached people
groups of the region lived and assured them that Christ had
equipped them with all they needed to reach the entire region
with the gospel.
The pattern he taught for starting churches was built around
four steps: 1) Model, 2) Assist, 3) Watch and 4) Leave. Modeling
referred to the act of doing church with the new (or soon to be)
believers using the POUCH approach described above. Assisting
referred to the act of helping the newly formed church to plant a
daughter church. Watching was an important and conscious effort
to see to it that a third-generation church was started without the
assistance or direct involvement of the missionary. Leaving was
the final crucial step of ensuring that the movement was truly
indigenous and self-propagating.
In a very short time, the new Yanyin believers had started
multiple POUCH churches across the region, each of which was
modeling, assisting new church starts, watching to see that the
reproduction was continuing and then leaving to go and begin a
new church plant elsewhere. Undoubtedly the chain of repro-
duction was broken from time to time, but due to the many,
many new churches that were being started, the breaks did not
significantly slow the spread of the movement.
The remote region of Yanyin was far-removed from seminar-
ies or Bible institutes. Government restrictions prohibited the
building of any local seminaries. Instead, the missionary strate-
gist looked to New Testament models of mentoring. As the mis-
sionary trained the first generation of church leaders, he insisted
that they train someone else. Thus, training was done through
one-on-one mentoring relationships. Each aspiring church
leader was required to be both a disciple and a discipler in an
ongoing chain of teaching and being taught “whatsoever things
I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). Whatever a lay pastor

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 19 CHAPTER 2

learned one day, he would teach to another lay leader the next
day. This provided the ultimate example of on-the-job training
that was always vital, fresh and “just in time” to be used.

Unique factors
Even though persecution and death accompanied the spread
of the gospel across Yanyin, there was not a systematic effort on
the part of the government to stop the movement. This may have
been partially due to the low profile of cell churches and the
absence of new church buildings.
New believers were immediately baptized and taught that it
was normal for them to win others to Christ and lead them to
form new churches. This “high demand/high risk” reliance on
new converts as evangelists and church planters contributed
greatly to the rapid expansion of the movement.
The nondenominational context of churches in China meant
that there was no denominational tradition that the churches
adopted. It remains to be seen whether heretical expressions will
emerge within the movement. However, the highly decentralized
nature of the Yanyin Church Planting Movement is not conducive
to a single individual gaining control over the whole. At the doc-
trinal heart of each cell church is a commitment to obey the Bible.
Since church worship consists of participative Bible study with

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 20 CHAPTER 2

multiple leaders, there is a natural corrective from within the
group itself to misinterpretation or extremes of interpretation.
When asked about the movement’s lack of denominational
identity, the strategy coordinator commented that, even though
the government forbids denominational expressions in China,
the Yanyin churches are more Baptist than most Baptist churches
he has known. He further predicts that their pattern of allegiance
to the Bible and commitment to the priesthood of the laity will
keep the movement on track.

Learning points
1. From the beginning, evangelism was lay-led and centered
among the lost rather than inside church buildings.
2. Multiple, unpaid church leaders ensured the availability of
the growing number of leaders needed to continually begin
new works.
3. The house-church pattern of the Yanyin movement is well-
adapted to growth and to a persecution environment.
4. By leaving the assignment before it grew large enough to
attract government scrutiny, the missionary helped the
Yanyin movement avoid the appearance of foreignness in a
country known for its nationalism and xenophobia.

The Bholdari of India

The setting
In the congested interior of India there is a people group
we’ll call the Bholdari. The name refers to their language, which
claims nearly 90 million speakers living in more than 170,000 vil-
lages stretched across four Indian states. The population includes
all four castes and the classless untouchables. The majority of the
people group are extremely impoverished, illiterate and depend-
ent upon subsistence agriculture and a barter economy for their
livelihood.
The region is also home to several important Hindu holy
sites and the Brahmin, or priestly, caste is well-represented
among the Bholdari. More than 85 percent of the Bholdari are
Hindu, the remainder being Muslim or animist. Within this
region there also are four large cities with more than 1 million
people each.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 21 CHAPTER 2

 Christian
contact with these
people began
with the ministry
of William Carey
and his Baptist
successors in the
early 19th centu-
ry. Roman Catho-
lic Jesuits began
work about the
same time. In the
19th and early
20th centuries,
several thousand
untouchables
streamed into the
Catholic church.
Since Indian in-
dependence in
1947, however,
Catholic growth
has plateaued
with less than
one-tenth of 1 percent professing Catholicism.
Baptist work received a spark of life from Swedish Baptist
missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These mis-
sionaries succeeded in planting and nurturing 28 churches in the
area before departing the field in the mid-20th century. Baptist
work was dealt a severe blow when British troops, seeking to
quell the nationalist independence movement, bivouacked their
occupying troops in the homes of local Baptists. During the latter
half of the 20th century, Christianity peaked and began a long
decline. By the end of the 1980s, it had been more than 25 years
since any of these churches had reproduced themselves.

What happened
In 1989, Southern Baptists sent a strategy coordinator to the
Bholdari people. Following a year of language and culture acqui-
sition, the missionary launched a strategy of working through

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 22 CHAPTER 2

some of the local churches that had embraced his vision for planti-
ng new churches. To his horror, the first six Indian church planters,
using methods common to church planting in the more tolerant
environment of south India, were brutally murdered in separate
events as they began their missionary work.
In 1992 the tide turned, however, as the missionary strategist
implemented a new approach to church planting. Drawing on the
teachings of Jesus found in Luke 10, in which Jesus sent out dis-
ciples two by two into the villages of Galilee and instructed them
to find a “man of peace,” the Bholdari evangelist church planters
began to do the same. Before opening his mouth to proclaim the
gospel, each Bholdari missionary would move in with a local
man of peace and begin discipling the family (even before they
became believers) into the Christian faith using chronological sto-
rying of the Bible. As these initial converts came to faith, they led
their families to the Lord, baptized them and forged them into the
nucleus of new churches in each village.
In 1993, the number of churches grew from 28 to 36. The fol-
lowing year saw 42 more churches started. A training center
ensured that there would be a continuing stream of evange-
list/church planters
spreading the word.
2000
Along the way, 2000

churches began mul- 1750

tiplying themselves. 1500

In 1996, the number 1250 1200

of churches climbed 1000

to 547, then 1,200 in 750

547
1997. By 1998 there 500

250
220
were 2,000 churches 28 36 78
0
among the Bhol- 1989 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
dari. In seven years
more than 55,000 Bholdari Churches
Bholdari came to
faith in Jesus Christ.

Key factors
Several key points have marked the development of this
Church Planting Movement. An early one came with the mis-
sionary strategist’s decision to experiment with multiple models

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 23 CHAPTER 2

to determine maximum effectiveness. Simultaneous church
planting initiatives were launched through the existing local
Baptist churches, through a humanitarian aid project and
through a local network of evangelist church planters.
After six months, the strategist carefully evaluated each
work. Once he determined that the local church planters were, by
far, the most productive agents, he began channeling more of his

resources of time and training into them.

A second pivotal step came when the IMB strategist identified
and trained an Indian missionary to serve as co-strategy coordi-
nator from within the movement. The blond-haired American
strategy coordinator with limited language acquisition would
always be less suited for travel throughout the Bholdari provinces
than an Indian. Together the two created a dynamic synergy. The
IMB strategist lived outside of India and traveled extensively,
developing a large international coalition to support the ministry.
The Indian strategist lived within the region, implementing and
coordinating the growing network of training, evangelism and
church planting.
Just as the Indian strategist was able to do things and go
places that were impossible for the IMB missionary, so too the
IMB strategy coordinator was able to perform vital ministry
tasks that would have been impossible for his colleague living

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 24 CHAPTER 2

within the country. These roles included: development of a mas-
sive global prayer ministry; creation of promotional and mobi-
lization materials; marshaling of Scripture translation and cas-
settes; development of training and leadership materials; and the
forging of strategic alliances with evangelicals from other parts of
Asia who contributed to the expenses of the Bholdari church
planters.
In an effort to minimize institutionalism and foreign depend-
ency, the strategy coordinator has placed every program in the
Bholdari ministry on a two-year timetable. After two years, funds
are withdrawn and the entire work is re-evaluated. Even the
church planter training programs are held in rented facilities and
relocated every two years.

Unique factors
What began as a predominantly Baptist movement fractured
into multiple alliances during its first seven years of existence.
This was due in part to the local Baptist churches’ inability to
keep up with the rapid growth.
Rather than divert his focus from church planting to denom-
ination building, the strategy coordinator chose a different means
of unifying the sprawling movement. The common link between
every church: commitment to the Bible as undisputed authority.
Another distinctive in the Bholdari Church Planting
Movement was the strategy coordinator’s reliance upon outside
funds to support the work. However, funding was limited in its
use. Funds went to establish training centers for church planters
and lay pastors, to support church planters in training and to
subsidize the expenses incurred by itinerant evangelists and
church planters. This provided a base of support for the church
planters as they pursued their work across hostile territory. Once
churches were planted, subsidies ceased. No subsidies were
channeled to local pastors. Instead, pastors were trained to be
bivocational. Neither was funding allowed to be channeled into
constructing buildings.
The reliance upon external funds for the support of evange-
list/church planters raises questions about the ability of the
movement to propel itself indigenously. Avoidance of pastoral
subsidies or subsidies for buildings has encouraged the indige-
nization process, but the funding of local missionaries has caused

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 25 CHAPTER 2

concern in some quarters. The response given by the strategy
coordinator is that “all missionaries, by their very nature, must
receive external funds. What is true for Western missionaries is
true for Indian missionaries as well.” An encouraging sign may
be found in the way local churches have caught the vision for
planting new congregations. At an annual pastors’ conference
each of the 1,000 pastors in attendance reported that their own
churches were starting between two and five new churches.
Beginning with the family of the man of peace, conversions
followed along family lines throughout each village. Individuals
were not baptized apart from their household. Male family mem-
bers typically baptized their emerging church family and led the
church community which followed.

Learning points
1. Failure can be a prelude to success, if we are willing to learn
from it and not give up. The first efforts at church planting
among the Bholdari resulted in six martyrs.
2. Experimentation and rigorous evaluation can help put a
Church Planting Movement on track and keep it on track.
3. At the level of discipleship and doctrine, two questions have
shaped the practice of the Bholdari believers. Every issue of
faith and practice is met by:
a. what will bring honor to Christ in this situation and
b. what does God’s word say?
4. Chronological Bible storying and oral cassette versions of the
Scripture have enabled God’s Word to become a central force
even among a predominantly illiterate people group.

The Khmer of Cambodia

The setting
The 20th century has seen more than its share of wars, dicta-
tors and genocide, but few surpass the tragic modern history of
Cambodia. Buffeted by the Vietnam conflict for more than two
decades, Cambodia emerged from that war with Maoist dictator
Pol Pot driving the country into ruin. During his five-year reign
from 1975-1979, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge engineered the murder,
disappearance or starvation of up to 3.3 million of the country’s
8 million citizens.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 26 CHAPTER 2

 This reign of terror left Cambodia’s infrastructure in sham-
bles, its adult male population decimated and its youth illiterate.
The subsequent rule by a Vietnam-installed government ended
the genocide, but could not undo the damage done to Cambo-
dian society.
The societal upheaval set the stage for the changes which
were to come. Centuries of Buddhist influence were undermined
by communist ideology. Roman Catholicism, which had gained
a foothold in the country, was targeted by the Khmer Rouge
because of perceived foreign ties to the Vatican and France.
Earlier in the century, missionaries from the Christian and
Missionary Alliance and Overseas Missionary Fellowship had
introduced Protestantism into the country, but their numbers
had never exceeded 5,000. During Pol Pot’s rule, the Khmer
Rouge dealt them a severe blow, expelling missionaries and mur-
dering many of the scattered flock. By 1990, Cambodia’s evan-
gelical population had dwindled to no more than 600 believers.

What happened
According to a senior missionary who served in Cambodia
for decades with Overseas Missionary Fellowship, the turning
point for Christianity in the country began in the 1990s. By 1999,
the number of Protestant believers had risen from 600 to more

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 27 CHAPTER 2

than 60,000. The largest number of these were Baptists with
10,000 members, followed by an indigenous Campus Crusade
denomination, then the Christian and Missionary Alliance
and various other groups.
The primary
catalyst for change 200 194
came in December 175
1989, when South- 150
ern Baptists assign- 125
123
ed a strategy coor- 100
78
dinator to the 75
Khmer people. By 50 43
1991, he had com- 25
6 10
20
pleted language 0
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
study and already
begun implement- Cambodian Baptist Churches
ing a strategy for
reaching the Khmer
people.
Instead of planting a church himself, as had previously been
his custom, the missionary began a mentoring relationship with
a Cambodian layman. Within a year, he had drawn six
Cambodian church planters into his mentoring circle. Over the
next few months, he developed a church-planting manual in the
Khmer language and taught the Khmer church planters doctrine,
evangelism and church-planting skills using resources such as
the JESUS film, chronological Bible storying and simple house-
church development. He also instilled in them a vision and pas-
sion for reaching their entire country with a Church Planting
Movement.
In 1993, the number of Baptist churches grew from six to 10.
The following year, the number doubled to 20. In 1995, when the
number of churches reached 43, the Cambodian church leaders
formed an association of like-minded churches which they called
the Khmer Baptist Convention (subsequently changed to the
Cambodian Baptist Convention). The following year, the number
of churches climbed to 78. In 1997, there were 123 Baptist
churches scattered across 53 of the country’s 117 districts. By the
spring of 1999, Baptists counted more than 200 churches and
10,000 members. Few of these churches met in dedicated build-

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 28 CHAPTER 2

ings. The vast majority met in homes that, in the countryside,
could accommodate 50 or more individuals.
The strategy coordinator departed the assignment in 1996,
leaving behind a small team of missionaries and a network of
vital church planting churches scattered across much of the
country. The work has continued to grow and strengthen.

Key factors
In his account of why this Church Planting Movement hap-
pened, the strategy coordinator cited several key factors. “Over
the past six years,” he wrote, “there has been more mobilized
prayer for the people of Cambodia than any other time in their
history.” The missionary credits this prayer with protecting
church planters and opening the hearts of lost Khmer people to
the good news of Jesus Christ.
Prayer also characterizes the lives of the new church mem-
bers, filling them with a strong sense of God’s direct involvement
in their daily affairs. Signs and wonders, such as exorcisms, heal-
ings and other acts of spiritual warfare, continue to be common-
place among the Cambodian believers.
Training has been a fundamental element in the movement
from its inception. The strategy coordinator established Rural
Leadership Training Programs (RLTPs) wherever possible. These
centers for church planting and theological education by exten-
sion were intensely practical. They met in facilities near the area
in which they hoped to plant churches and relied upon logistical
support from nearby churches. Training was offered in eight
two-week modules consisting of Bible teaching, practical train-
ing in church leadership and equipping for evangelism and
church planting. The 16 weeks of training generally stretched out
over a two-year period of time, enabling the church leader to con-
tinue both his pastoral work and secular livelihood while gaining
the much-needed training.
The strategy coordinator also insisted on modeling and men-
toring as a core value of the movement. Referencing Paul’s
instructions in 2 Timothy 2:2, the strategy coordinator developed
what he called the “222 Principle”: Never do anything alone. In
this manner, vision, skills, values and principles transferred from
believer to believer.
As the movement unfolded, the momentum burned from

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 29 CHAPTER 2

within. Local leaders expressed their own vision for planting
churches in every district and within each ethnic community. As
they acquired training and encouragement, the primary church
planters were the church members themselves, rather than mis-
sionaries or professional church planters. The coordinator later
observed that “churches planted by other churches are repro-
ducible, but those started by funded church planters are not
(with few exceptions).”
In order to ensure indigenization and limit dependence on
outsiders, the missionary placed time constraints on the forma-
tion of a new church. This also infused the movement with the
characteristic of rapid reproduction.
With the departure of the strategy coordinator in 1996, the
movement entered a new phase. The IMB missionary team that
remained in the country assisted the movement by staying in a
catalytic role rather than a prominent assertive role. A team
member expressed this in his admonition to his colleagues to
“earnestly seek to become the low-profile footman,” and “avoid
the temptation of being a high-profile frontman.”

Unique factors
Though not entirely unique, it was helpful that the
Cambodian Baptist Convention quickly adopted ambitious goals

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 30 CHAPTER 2

for their emerging association of churches. They challenged one
another to spread the gospel throughout the country and plant
churches in every district. This passion for evangelism and
church planting affected the selection of convention leadership.
Men were sought who had led in church planting themselves
and had served as instructors of other church planters in the
Rural Leadership Training Programs.
Within the Cambodian Baptist churches a unique model
emerged, which blended New Testament substance with forms
from the communist traditions. Each new church was organized
around a core of seven lay leaders (see Acts 6:3, which describes
the choosing of the seven deacons). The term they adopted for this
seven member core was not deacons, however, but “the Central
Committee.” The Central Committee directs the various out-
reaches to the community, including evangelism, literacy, wor-
ship, pastoral teaching and ministries to women, youth and men.
As the CPM progressed, it became evident that the Rural
Leadership Training Program was essential to its growth. A mis-
sionary later observed, “Where there are RLTPs in place, church
planting always follows.” With this in mind, the missionary
invested himself heavily in organizing and developing training
materials as well as raising support for the RLTPs from churches
across Asia.

Learning points
1. Shortly after the International Mission Board placed a strat-
egy coordinator in Cambodia, more than 30 other mission
agencies entered the country. None of these saw the church
planting success of the IMB effort, primarily because they
lacked an intentional church-planting strategy.
2. The missionary bypassed the step of ‘passing the torch’ to
the Cambodian believers by starting the movement with the
torch firmly in their hands. He insisted that every church
planted be planted by Cambodians.
3. The “222 Principle” (2 Timothy 2:2) of modeling and mentor-
ing has proven to be an invaluable means of training leaders
for a Church Planting Movement.
4. The Cambodian Baptist Convention has adopted a Church
Planting Movement ethos and vision. Leaders are selected
based upon their ability to contribute to this vision.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 31 CHAPTER 2

Other Emerging Movements
As we look around the world, we see other Church Planting
Movements emerging. Encouraging signs are appearing among
the Maasai of Tanzania and Kenya. Their very inaccessibility on the
rugged savannah lands of the Maasai Plain has limited missionary
access to them. Offering to construct church buildings or subsidize
pastors means little to these semi-nomadic people with their barter
economy. Penetrating the forbidding terrain, IMB missionaries
have engaged the Maasai with the gospel, placing their major
emphasis on training Maasai church planters and leaders.
The result has been rapid church growth among the Maasai.
Worship is filled with expressions of awe and power as Maasai
look to God for healing and personal direction. Chronological
storying of the Bible has evolved naturally into the Maasai
singing of Bible stories. Spontaneous clusters of Maasai men and
women form choirs to sing the great stories of the Old and New
Testament. As the Maasai accompany their songs with high ver-
tical leaps into the air, there is little doubt that the Maasai Church
Planting Movement is deeply rooted and truly indigenous.
Other Church Planting Movements are surfacing every few
months: 30,000 believers in a Southeast Asian country, 100,000
believers swelling 800 new churches in eastern India; 20,000 com-
ing to Christ over a four-year period in one Chinese province;
church starts doubling in six months in one Western European
country; 383 churches starting in a single state in Brazil.
Missionaries are sharing these reports with each other—and
telling one another the means by which God is doing these mar-
velous works. God is doing something remarkable. Let’s take a
look at what we’ve learned from these mighty works of God
around the world.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 32 CHAPTER 2

3 TEN UNIVERSAL ELEMENTS
fter surveying Church Planting Movements around the

A world, we found at least 10 elements present in every one of

them. While it may be possible to have a Church Planting
Movement without them, we have yet to see this occur. Any mis-
sionary intent on seeing a Church Planting Movement should
consider these 10 elements.
1. Prayer
Prayer has been fundamental to every Church Planting
Movement we have observed. Prayer typically provides the
first pillar in a strategy coordinator’s master plan for reaching
his or her people group. However, it is the vitality of prayer in
the missionary’s personal life that leads to its imitation in the
life of the new church and its leaders. By revealing from the
beginning the source of his power in prayer, the missionary
effectively gives away the greatest resource he brings to the
assignment. This sharing of the power source is critical to the
transfer of vision and momentum from the missionary to the
new local Christian leadership.
2. Abundant gospel sowing
We have yet to see a Church Planting Movement emerge
where evangelism is rare or absent. Every Church Planting
Movement is accompanied by abundant sowing of the gospel.
The law of the harvest applies well: “If you sow abundantly you
will also reap abundantly.” In Church Planting Movements,
hundreds and even thousands of individuals are hearing the
claims that Jesus Christ has on their lives. This sowing often
relies heavily upon mass media evangelism, but it always

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 33 CHAPTER 3

includes personal evangelism with vivid testimonies to the life-
changing power of the gospel.
The converse to the law of the harvest is also true. Wherever
governments or societal forces have managed to intimidate and
stifle Christian witness, Church Planting Movements have been
effectively eliminated.
3. Intentional church planting
In every Church Planting Movement, someone implemented
a strategy of deliberate church planting before the movement got
under way. There are several instances in which all the contextual
elements were in place, but the missionaries lacked either the skill
or the vision to lead a Church Planting Movement. However, once
this ingredient was added to the mix, the results were remarkable.
Churches don’t just happen. There is evidence around the
world of many thousands coming to Christ through a variety of
means without the resulting development of multiple churches.
In these situations, an intentional church-planting strategy might
transform these evangelistic awakenings into full-blown Church
Planting Movements.
4. Scriptural authority
Even among nonliterate people groups, the Bible has been
the guiding source for doctrine, church polity and life itself.
While Church Planting Movements have occurred among peo-
ples without the Bible translated into their own language, the
majority had the Bible either orally or in written form in their
heart language. In every instance, Scripture provided the rudder
for the church’s life, and its authority was unquestioned.
5. Local leadership
Missionaries involved in Church Planting Movements often
speak of the self-discipline required to mentor church planters
rather than do the job of church planting themselves. Once a mis-
sionary has established his identity as the primary church
planter or pastor, it’s difficult for him ever to assume a back-seat
profile again. This is not to say that missionaries have no role in
church planting. On the contrary, local church planters receive
their best training by watching how the missionary models par-
ticipative Bible studies with non-Christian seekers. Walking
alongside local church planters is the first step in cultivating and
establishing local leadership.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 34 CHAPTER 3

6. Lay leadership
Church Planting Movements are driven by lay leaders.
These lay leaders are typically bivocational and come from the
general profile of the people group being reached. In other
words, if the people group is primarily nonliterate, then the
leadership shares this characteristic. If the people are primarily
fishermen, so too are their lay leaders. As the movement
unfolds, paid clergy often emerge. However, the majority—and
growth edge of the movement—continue to be led by lay or bi-
vocational leaders.
This reliance upon lay leadership ensures the largest possi-
ble pool of potential church planters and cell church leaders.
Dependence upon seminary-trained—or in nonliterate societies,
even educated—pastoral leaders means that the work will
always face a leadership deficit.
7. Cell or house churches
Church buildings do appear in Church Planting
Movements. However, the vast majority of the churches contin-
ue to be small, reproducible cell churches of 10-30 members
meeting in homes or storefronts.
There is a distinction between cell churches and house
churches. Cell churches are linked to one another in some type
of structured network. Often this network is linked to a larger,
single church identity. The Full Gospel Central Church in Seoul,
South Korea, is perhaps the most famous example of the cell-
church model with more than 50,000 individual cells.
House churches may look the same as cell churches, but
they generally are not organized under a single authority or
hierarchy of authorities. As autonomous units, house churches
may lack the unifying structure of cell churches, but they are
typically more dynamic. Each has its advantages. Cell groups
are easier to shape and guide toward doctrinal conformity,
while house churches are less vulnerable to suppression by a
hostile government. Both types of churches are common in
Church Planting Movements, often appearing in the same move-
ment.
8. Churches planting churches
In most Church Planting Movements, the first churches
were planted by missionaries or by missionary-trained church

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 35 CHAPTER 3

planters. At some point, however, as the movements entered an
exponential phase of reproduction, the churches themselves
began planting new churches. In order for this to occur, church
members have to believe that reproduction is natural and that
no external aids are needed to start a new church. In Church
Planting Movements, nothing deters the local believers from
winning the lost and planting new cell churches themselves.
9. Rapid reproduction
Some have challenged the necessity of rapid reproduction
for the life of the Church Planting Movement, but no one has
questioned its evidence in every CPM. Most church planters
involved in these movements contend that rapid reproduction is
vital to the movement itself. They report that when reproduc-
tion rates slow down, the Church Planting Movement falters.
Rapid reproduction communicates the urgency and importance
of coming to faith in Christ. When rapid reproduction is taking
place, you can be assured that the churches are unencumbered
by nonessential elements and the laity are fully empowered to
participate in this work of God.
10. Healthy churches
Church growth experts have written extensively in recent
years about the marks of a church. Most agree that healthy church-
es should carry out the following five purposes: 1) worship, 2)
evangelistic and missionary outreach, 3) education and disciple-
ship, 4) ministry and 5) fellowship. In each of the Church Planting
Movements we studied, these five core functions were evident.
A number of church planters have pointed out that when
these five health indicators are strong, the church can’t help but
grow. More could be said about each of these healthy church
indicators, but the most significant one, from a missionary van-
tage point, is the church’s missionary outreach. This impulse
within these CPM-oriented churches is extending the gospel
into remote people groups and overcoming barriers that have
long resisted Western missionary efforts.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 36 CHAPTER 3

4 TEN COMMON FACTORS
eyond the 10 universal elements found in every Church

B Planting Movement, there are at least 10 frequently, though

not universally, found characteristics. These are not listed in
any particular order of priority or frequency. In most CPMs,
however, we are seeing most if not all of these factors.
1. Worship in the heart language
There are cases in which God's Word has not yet been trans-
lated into the heart language of the people and worship is con-
ducted in a trade language. Even in those rare instances, though,
the heart language of the people emerges in their prayers, songs,
sermon illustrations and applications. Worship in the common
heart language keeps it accessible and within reach of all mem-
bers of the community and allows everyone to participate in a
new church's formation. Missionaries who identify and embrace
the heart language of the people they are trying to reach are well
positioned to stimulate a Church Planting Movement. Nothing
reveals a people group’s worldview as much as an intimate
knowledge of their heart language. Missionaries who choose to
work through a trade language begin their ministry with a cur-
tain between themselves and the hearts of the people they are
seeking to reach.
2. Evangelism has communal implications
Unlike the predominant pattern in the West with its empha-
sis on individualism and personal commitment, Church
Planting Movements typically rely on a much stronger family
and social connection. Missionaries in CPMs have recognized
this and urged new believers to follow the web of their own

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 37 CHAPTER 4

family relationships to draw new believers into the community
of faith (see Acts 16:31-32). In many cases, the churches come to
consist of family units and are led by the family’s head.
3. Rapid incorporation of new converts into the life and minis-
try of the church
In most Church Planting Movements, baptism is not delayed
by lengthy discipleship requirements. On the contrary, disciple-
ship typically precedes conversion and continues indefinitely.
Even when baptisms are delayed, new believers are expected to
become witnesses immediately; these new disciples immediately
become disciplers of others and even church planters. One elder-
ly man who came to Christ in a Church Planting Movement in
India planted 42 churches in his first year as a believer. In an effort
to keep the movement growing outward, CPM-oriented mission-
aries typically encourage new believers to join or help start new
churches, rather than simply adding larger numbers to existing
congregations.
4. Passion and
fearlessness
Church plant-
ing movements are
characterized by
passion and a sense
of urgency that
attests to the impor-
tance of salvation
and the necessity of
conversion. New
believers exhibit a
boldness in the face
of opposition. A
spirit of timidity or
fear quenches a
CPM. Boldness may
invite persecution,
but it fuels a
Church Planting
Movement (see Jos-
hua 1:6).

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 38 CHAPTER 4

5. A price to pay to become a Christian
Church Planting Movements often emerge in difficult settings
where conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ is not a popular or
socially advantageous thing to do. In many cases, conversion
leads to severe persecution or even death. In the face of this per-
secution, believers find strong support in the testimony of Jesus
and the New Testament church (see Matt. 10:17-25). Persecution
tends to screen out the uncommitted and ensures a highly dedi-
cated membership.
6. Perceived leadership crisis or spiritual vacuum in society
A country or people group that has experienced a loss of
leadership or a spiritual void coming from war, natural disaster
or displacement may create a ripe environment for a Church
Planting Movement. Societal disintegration is becoming
increasingly common in our rapidly changing world and bodes
well for Church Planting Movements. The removal of long-held
symbols of stability and security prompts individuals to recon-
sider matters of eternal significance.
7. On-the-job training for church leadership
With the rapid increase in the number of churches, effective
leadership training is critical to the success of the movement. If
new church leaders have to leave their churches for extended
periods for theological training, the momentum of the movement
will be diminished. At the same time, this vital component of
church growth must not be overlooked. The most beneficial train-
ing brings education as close to the action as possible. Theological
Education by Extension, with an emphasis on practical learning
interspersed with ongoing ministry, has proven to be a strong
complement to Church Planting Movements.
The forms of this on-the-job training vary from field to field,
but typically include a series of short-term training modules that
do not impede the primary tasks of evangelism, church planting
and pastoral leadership. Missionaries also attest to the impor-
tance of ongoing leadership training for the continued growth
and strong development of a Church Planting Movement.
8. Leadership authority is decentralized
Denominations and church structures that impose a hierar-
chy of authority or require bureaucratic decision-making are ill-
suited to handle the dynamism of a Church Planting Movement.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 39 CHAPTER 4

It is important that every cell or house church leader has all the
authority required to do whatever needs to be done in terms of
evangelism, ministry and new church planting without seeking
approval from a church hierarchy.

Denominations and church structures

that impose a hierarchy of authority
or require bureaucratic decision-making
are ill-suited to handle the dynamism
of a Church Planting Movement.

9. Outsiders keep a low profile

Missionaries who have been involved in Church Planting
Movements point to the importance of keeping a low personal
profile as they seek to initiate and nurture the movement. A key
concern is to minimize foreignness and encourage indigeneity.
Rather than waiting for new believers to prove themselves wor-
thy of leadership, missionaries begin by drawing new believers
into leadership roles through participative Bible studies and
mentoring pastors from behind the scenes.
10. Missionaries suffer
A list of missionaries who have been engaged in Church
Planting Movements reads like a catalog of calamity. Many have
suffered illness, derision and shame. In some instances the suffer-
ing was due to their own self-destructive behavior; in other cases
it came at the hands of opponents. Students of Church Planting
Movements suggest that the affliction may be related to a higher
spiritual price required for rolling back the darkness (Rev. 12:12).
Whatever the cause, the disproportionate degree of suffering by
missionaries engaged in Church Planting Movements is notewor-
thy. Missionaries intent on this course of action are well-advised
to be on their guard, to watch, fight and pray.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 40 CHAPTER 4

5 TEN PRACTICAL HANDLES
hurch Planting Movements are sovereign acts of God, but in

C His sovereign grace and mercy He has chosen to partner with

us. There are some practical things that missionaries can do to
help initiate or nurture a Church Planting Movement. These are
not sequential steps. Some of them are more important than oth-
ers, but each of them has been used in the formation of Church
Planting Movements somewhere in the world. Each missionary
must determine which ones fit his or her situation and how best
to adapt them for maximum benefit.
1. Pursue a CPM orientation from the beginning
This is a key point: Church Planting Movements begin the
day the work begins. The end-vision is being "realized" from the
beginning. Thus, missionaries who want to start a Church
Planting Movement must begin by "modeling a CPM-type
church" complete with evangelism, discipleship and multiplica-
tion training within a cell-group setting. This defies the sequen-
tial model that begins with pre-evangelism, then evangelism,
then discipleship, church planting, missions, etc.
2. Develop and implement comprehensive strategies
Missionaries who address the scope of all that is required for
initiating and nurturing a Church Planting Movement quickly
realize that the job is far beyond their personal limitations of
time, talent and resources. However, as they look to the broader
resource pool of Great Commission Christians and continually
ask the question, “What’s it going to take to launch a Church
Planting Movement?” they find that a comprehensive strategy
is required.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 41 CHAPTER 5

 A comprehensive strategy stands on at least four pillars: 1)
prayer, 2) God’s Word, 3) evangelism and 4) church planting.
These four pillars are complemented by a matrix of ministries
including human needs ministries, communications strategies,
mobilization and other efforts. When combined, these compre-
hensive strategies free the ministry from the limitations of a sin-
gle missionary or even a single mission agency and maximize
the possibilities for initiating and nurturing a Church Planting
Movement.

The effective strategy coordinator is

ruthless in evaluating all he or she does in
light of the end-vision—a Church Planting
Movement—discarding those
things that do not or will not lead to it.
3. Evaluate everything to achieve the end-vision
A missionary once commented, "You can tell a good strategy
coordinator from a bad one by what he says 'no' to." This should
not be interpreted to mean that widespread experimentation is
inappropriate, but the effective strategy coordinator is ruthless
in evaluating all he or she does in light of the end-vision—a
Church Planting Movement—discarding those things that do
not or will not lead to it.

4. Employ precision harvesting

Rather than randomly sowing gospel seeds and awaiting a
harvest, a growing number of missionaries have learned the wis-
dom of precision harvesting. Precision harvesting uses “response
filtering” to identify and locate individuals who have already
made a positive response to the gospel and then places longer-
term workers in direct contact with them for discipleship follow-
up and church planting. This model recognizes that a missionary
who settles onto the mission field may succeed in learning the
language, sharing his faith, discipling a group of believers and
planting a church, but that there may be a more efficient way to
accomplish the same end.
Working with radio broadcasters or other agents of mass
evangelism, the missionary church planter is able to glean the

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 42 CHAPTER 5

names and addresses of respondents to another’s sowing min-
istry. Then, positioning himself in the midst of these new believ-
ers or seekers, he is able to begin a discipling and church planti-
ng ministry. This ministry of precision harvesting can save years
in the process of starting a church or multiple churches.
5. Prepare new believers for persecution
New believers must understand that a call to Christ is a call
to the cross. Harassment, persecution and even martyrdom may
come, but they should not be a surprise to new believers. Since
New Testament times, persecution has come to those who fol-
low Christ. Preparation for harassment doesn’t wait until after
conversion; it begins in the evangelization process itself.
Believers are taught to expect hardships from the beginning as
the price of their conversion (see Mark 8:34).
6. Gather them, then win them
A logical progression in church planting is: Win them, disci-
ple them, congregationalize them, then organize them into a
church. But this isn’t the only way to get the job done. Many
effective church planters who have participated in Church
Planting Movements have learned to gather a group of lost
seekers into evangelistic worship and Bible study groups. These
“not-yet Christians” are brought into the vision for a Church
Planting Movement even as they are brought into the family of
faith.
7. Try a POUCH methodology
The POUCH methodology, described in the case study of the
Yanyin people, contains core elements that should be applicable
in virtually any church planting context. A POUCH church uti-
lizes Participative Bible study and worship groups, affirms
Obedience to the Bible as the sole measure of success, uses
Unpaid and non-hierarchical leadership and meets in Cell groups
or House churches.
8. Develop multiple leaders within each cell church
Avoid the trap of inadequate leadership required to meet
growth needs by starting the work with multiple leaders.
Remember the Cambodia Church Planting Movement, which
began every new cell church with a seven-person “Central
Committee”? This type of multiple leadership is common in

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 43 CHAPTER 5

Church Planting Movements and ensures an abundance of poten-
tial leaders for the cell church itself and for starting new churches.
9. Use on-the-job training
Avoid the temptation to pull new local church leaders away
from their churches for years of training in an institution. A
decentralized theological education which is punctuated by
practical experience is preferable. This approach might include
one month of training with two months of pastoral work, or
eight sessions of training for two weeks at a time stretched over
a couple of years, with ongoing discipleship and skill upgrades
that may last a lifetime. Higher education may benefit church
leaders at some point, but it can hinder a Church Planting
Movement in its early stages.
10. Model, Assist, Watch & Leave (MAWL)
Missionaries who are competent church planters face as
much challenge from themselves as they do from the people
group they are trying to reach. There is always a temptation to
“do it myself” rather than turn the work over to the emerging
local leadership. This transfer of responsibilities is complicated
by the fact that many, if not most, missionaries enjoy pastoring
and ministering to people.
This crisis of transferring responsibility can be minimized
when the missionary shares responsibility from the beginning
with those he is leading. A church-planting pattern of modeling
new church planting and worship, then assisting the church
members in the process of doing the same themselves, helps to
pass on the missionary’s expertise to the next generation of local
church planters (see 2 Tim. 2:2).
Only when the missionary has actually stepped away from
the work is the cycle of MAWL completed. Only then is a pas-
sionate renewal of indigenous church planting assured.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 44 CHAPTER 5

6 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
s we discuss Church Planting Movements with missionaries

A from around the world, a number of questions frequently

recur.
1. What about volunteers?
The key to effective use of volunteers in missions is orienta-
tion. Most short-term volunteers want to be strategic, but don’t
realize that some forms of help can actually hinder a Church
Planting Movement. Constructing church buildings, subsidizing
pastors and creating dependency are well-intentioned obstacles
to a Church Planting Movement.
Prayerwalks, evangelism, literature distribution, pastoral

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 45 CHAPTER 6

mentoring and human needs ministry are some of the many
positive contributions that volunteers make. Volunteers also
provide invaluable support to long-term missionaries who suffer
from isolation, difficulties in language learning, culture stress,
family hardships, etc.
One of the greatest contributions volunteers provide is
vision and passion. They inspire and encourage missionaries
and new believers alike with their demonstration of faith in
traveling great distances to demonstrate their love for the lost
and obedience to the Great Commission. This love and obedi-
ence are contagious.
2. What is the place of Baptist unions and conventions?
Baptist unions and conventions hold great potential as part-
ners in fulfilling the Great Commission. Sharing a common com-
mitment to Christ, they should be natural allies. However, com-
mitment to initiating and nurturing a Church Planting
Movement requires vision. When union leaders have a vision for
church multiplication that exceeds their need for control, they
can greatly facilitate the movement. Missionaries can help to
impart this vision through dialogue, education and modeling.
It is also important for missionaries to recognize that their
role is different than that of denominational leaders. The unique
role of the missionary is to continually push to the edge of lost-
ness, to the unreached, and introduce them to the gospel.
Denominational leaders have a much broader responsibility,
which the missionaries can bless and encourage, but should not
try to duplicate or control.
3. How about church buildings and institutions?
Church buildings and institutions can contribute to Church
Planting Movements, but they also can become stumbling blocks.
When buildings and institutions emerge indigenously and natu-
rally within the needs and means of the local believers, they
undergird the work. When institutions (seminaries, schools, hos-
pitals, etc.) are imposed by or dependent upon external agents,
they may leave a burden of maintenance that distracts from the
momentum of evangelism and church planting.
Church buildings have become second nature to us in the
West. We forget that it took Christianity nearly three centuries
before it indigenously arrived at the need for dedicated church

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 46 CHAPTER 6

buildings. During those same three centuries the gospel exploded
across much of the known world. When we instantly provide
church buildings for new congregations, we may be saddling
them with an external burden they are ill-equipped to carry.

Church buildings and institutions

can contribute to
Church Planting Movements, but
they also can become stumbling blocks.

4. Where do teams fit in?

Like everything else we’ve discussed, teams are not inher-
ently for or against Church Planting Movements. If each team
member sees the purpose of the team as fostering and nurturing
a Church Planting Movement, then the prospects for success are
good. If, on the other hand, the team or its members turn inward
and become an end in themselves, then a Church Planting
Movement is unlikely. When people group-focused teams die to
themselves, and set their sights on doing whatever it takes under
the lordship of Jesus Christ to initiate and nurture a Church
Planting Movement, success cannot be far away.
5. Do Church Planting Movements foster heresy?
Critics contend that a grassroots phenomenon such as a
Church Planting Movement is fertile ground for heresy. This
may be true, but is not necessarily so. The often-proposed solu-
tion is more theological training. However, church history has
shown that the cure can be worse than the disease. Since the first
theological school at Alexandria, Egypt, seminaries have proven
themselves capable of transmitting heresy as well as sound doc-
trine. The same is true today.
The key to sound doctrine is God’s Word. In the explosive
church growth environment of the first century, there were no
seminaries, simply a practice of “teaching them to observe what-
soever things I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). Out of this
mandate grew a number of approaches to discipleship and train-
ing. The challenge of the first century has changed little for us
today and invites the same types of creative responses to ensure
a continued faithfulness to Christ’s teachings.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 47 CHAPTER 6

6. What do you do with the kids?
Missionaries and those with traditional church experience
have raised many questions about the mechanics of cell-church
methodology. One of the most common questions concerns the
place of children in cell churches. Cell church practitioners admit
that this is a weakness compared to traditional churches with
their graded Sunday School programs. Solutions range from
incorporating the children into the cell church Bible study and
worship to segregating them into separate programs that may be
led by rotating volunteers or older youth. If we resist the temp-
tation to let cell churches get too large before they divide and
multiply, we keep the task of nurturing and discipling our youth
more manageable.
While there are no universal answers to this challenge, there
are a variety of responses that are surfacing around the world. As
with so many challenges related to a Church Planting Movement,
missionaries and church planters are encouraged to continue to
experiment, innovate and adapt!
7. Can we start again please?
Some missionaries who begin to seriously study Church
Planting Movements occasionally find that they are simply off-
track and wonder if it is possible to begin again. Of course it’s
impossible to actually begin again, but it is possible to correct
earlier mistakes and tip the scales of a movement in the right
direction. Because Church Planting Movements aren’t just
sequential, step-by-step programs, they can be facilitated when-
ever we stop doing those things that impede them and begin
doing more of those things that seem to support them. This
should be an encouragement to anyone who hopes to see a CPM
unfold among a people group.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 48 CHAPTER 6

7 OBSTACLES TO CPMS
hurch Planting Movements are acts of God, but it’s amazing

C how much mankind is capable of interfering with them. As

with most of God's works among us, He allows us to actively
cooperate with Him or become obstacles—consciously or uncon-
sciously—to His desired purposes. Missionaries involved in
Church Planting Movements have identified several very human
courses of action that tend to obstruct, slow or otherwise hinder
CPMs. Even though we cannot create a Church Planting
Movement, we can certainly work to avoid blocking their emer-
gence. Here are some of the most prominent obstacles to Church
Planting Movements facing missionaries today.
1. Imposing extra-biblical requirements for being a church
When a mission, union or convention attempts to require a
congregation to have extra-biblical things such as land, a build-
ing, seminary-trained leadership or paid clergy before granting
them full status as a church, a Church Planting Movement is
obstructed. Christians may have the best of intentions when
they impose preconditions before officially constituting a
church—preconditions usually aimed at ensuring viability of
the church before leaving it to its own devices. However,
requirements such as building, property and salaried clergy
quickly can become millstones around the neck of the church
and make reproducing itself all the more unlikely.
2. Loss of a valued cultural identity
When a people have to abandon their valued ethnic identi-
ty and adopt an alien culture in order to become believers, the
cause of church planting won’t go far. Around the world, many

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 49 CHAPTER 7

churches that look culturally out of place in their setting serve as
testimonies to this obstacle.
In too many instances, church planting has become cultural
warfare, as missionaries and local Christians attempt to conquer
and change the culture rather than the hearts of the people.
Whenever one must become like a Russian, American, European,
etc., to become a Christian, there is little chance that the move-
ment will spread rapidly among a non-Russian, non-American or
non-European people.
3. Overcoming bad examples of Christianity
Unfortunately, the spread of the gospel around the world has
sometimes produced churches that are poor examples of the faith.
If older churches in an area have non-regenerate members who
engage in worldly and immoral behavior, it will be difficult for
new believers to convince the lost that the Christian faith is holy
and capable of redeeming their world.
Some patterns of church behavior may not be immoral, but
still compromise and undermine the spirit of a Church Planting
Movement. Whenever older churches in the area feel no compul-
sion to spread their faith, new believers may question why they
should be passionate or urgent in evangelism.
4. Non-reproducible church models
Whenever missionaries begin planting churches with com-
ponents that cannot be reproduced by the people themselves,
they have undermined a Church Planting Movement. The temp-
tation is always there: it seems quicker and easier to import a
solution for a local challenge rather than search for an indigenous
solution. Extraneous items may be as innocuous as cinderblocks
for construction, electronic sound systems or imported folding
chairs.
Authentic Church Planting Movements always take on the
appearance of their context. If villages are made of bamboo, then
church buildings are made of bamboo. In urban areas, cell or
house churches emulate family structures instead of a congrega-
tional structure that requires expensive buildings used exclusive-
ly for worship meetings. CPM practitioners evaluate every aspect
of each church start with the question: “Can this be reproduced by
these believers?” If the answer is “no,” then the foreign element is
discarded.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 50 CHAPTER 7

5. Subsidies creating dependency
Money is not inherently evil. It has a vital role to play in the
support of missionaries and promotion of things lost people or
new believers cannot do for themselves. Any time the gospel is
introduced to a new people group, external support is required.
The problem is when outside funding creates dependency among
new Christians, stifling their initiative and quenching a Church
Planting Movement.
Proper use of external funds might include financing out-
reach to an unreached people, development of gospel literature,
radio programming and broadcasts, production of the JESUS
film, Scripture translation, gospel television, cassettes, CDs, etc.
When well-intentioned outsiders prop up growth by purchasing
buildings or subsidizing pastors’ salaries, they limit the capacity
of the movement to reproduce itself spontaneously and indige-
nously.
6. Extra-biblical leadership requirements
Whenever well-intentioned missionaries, churches or
denominational leaders impose requirements for church leaders
that exceed those stipulated by the New Testament, a Church
Planting Movement is impeded.
New Testament models are found in Christ’s selection of the
twelve disciples (Matt. 4:18-22) and Paul’s criteria for bishops and
deacons (1 Timothy 3). It is striking that moral character and will-
ingness to follow Christ are given much greater weight than the-
ological training or academic degrees.
7. Linear, sequential thought and practice
It is natural for missionaries to think in terms of sequential
steps in church planting. For example, first you learn the lan-
guage, then you develop relationships, then you share a witness,
then you disciple believers, then you congregationalize, then you
raise up leaders, then you begin another church start, etc. How-
ever, missionaries who have successfully navigated Church
Planting Movements describe a different, nonlinear unfolding
of the movement.
They insist on the importance of witnessing from day one,
even before the language is mastered. Rather than waiting for
conversion, missionaries disciple the lost into conversion. By
the time they’ve become believers, the new converts already

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 51 CHAPTER 7

have been participating in cell churches for some time and
already have acquired a vision for starting churches! Church
Planting Movements occur when all of the various elements of a
Church Planting Movement are under way simultaneously.
8. Planting “frog” rather than “lizard” churches
Yes, this is a metaphor. Frog churches perceive themselves
as ends in themselves, sitting fat and complacent on a hill or lily
pad (or main street), expecting the lost to come to them in search
of salvation. Frog churches hold meetings in places where they
feel comfortable and require the lost to adapt to their froggy
world. Lizard churches are always pursuing the lost. Adaptable
and ready for action, they move quickly into the world through
cracks and crevices seeking the lost. Lizard churches penetrate
the homes of the lost with evangelistic Bible studies rather than
requiring the lost to come to their churches. They are willing to
change their colors, expend enormous energy, even lose their
tails if necessary in order to bring the lost into the family of God.
9. Prescriptive strategies
After all the instruction that has gone into this book, it may
seem strange to warn missionaries against prefabricated method-
ologies. However, Church Planting Movement practitioners are
intensely inquisitive and committed to learning where and how
God is at work. Whenever missionaries enter a field with a pock-
et full of answers rather than a heart that is hungry to watch and
learn where God is at work and what He is doing, they are lim-
iting His ability to use them. This is not to encourage a “know-
nothing” approach to missions, but it does speak to the necessi-
ty of humility and dependence upon God to reveal where and
how He chooses to bring about a Church Planting Movement.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 52 CHAPTER 7

8 TIPS FOR FINE-TUNING A CPM
longside the models of Church Planting Movements we have

A examined, many others could be described as near misses. A

number of these show many of the characteristics we’ve come
to identify with Church Planting Movements, but lack some
essential components and thus may result in aborted movements.
An example of this is a Turkic Muslim people who have been
turning to Christ by the tens of thousands over the past five
years. As recently as 1992 there were no more than 50 known
believers among this population of several million. Beginning in
1989, a strategy built on prayer, evangelism and ministry was ini-
tiated among them. Work was slow at first, but in late 1995 the
turn to Christ began. By the end of the following year, local

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 53 CHAPTER 8

churches in the area reported baptizing more than 15,000 of these
Turkic Muslims.
Today, the swell of new believers has subsided somewhat,
but still features somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 adult con-
verts. The troubling factor is the relative lack of new churches to
assimilate the growth. While convert growth has exploded, there
has been little increase in the number of church starts, threatening
to leave thousands of churchless orphans to fend for themselves.
Perhaps it is not too late for missionaries to implement a
strategy of planting indigenously reproducing cell or house
churches among this people group. Training lay believers to
plant new cell churches could redeem this movement.
A similar situation has taken place among a Muslim people
group in Africa. As a result of widespread gospel radio broad-
cast and video evangelism, conservative reports estimate more
than 15,000 Muslim converts to Christianity. Despite these
encouraging numbers, only 30 known churches exist in the
region. Unless a more effective and indigenously reproducible
model of church can be introduced, there will likely be a great
loss of new believers.
More common types of “near misses” are the many places
around the world where missionaries have experienced moder-
ate growth when much greater growth may be possible. In these

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 54 CHAPTER 8

instances, missionaries have been faithfully evangelizing and
planting churches among their people group for decades.
People are responding to the gospel and the kingdom is slowly
growing. While church growth is steady, it is far from explosive.
No one would confuse this with a Church Planting Movement.
In this pattern of incremental church growth, church starts are
not even able to keep pace with the population growth rate.
Are Church Planting Movements possible in these kinds of
settings? Only God can say for sure, but CPM practitioners sug-
gest that some fine-tuning steps might be taken that could help
tip the scales in favor of a Church Planting Movement. In some
cases, the gestation period for church starts is just too lengthy. In
these instances, it may be possible to shorten the reproductive
cycle of a church plant. Here are some tips that may help to
speed the process:
If you’re using chronological storying to communicate the
gospel, remember that storying is a method, not an end in itself.
As a method, it can be adapted and modified. Consider using
five to 10 stories to provide a panorama overview of the Bible
leading to a gospel presentation and a call to commitment. You
can then follow up the panorama presentation with a lengthier
walk through the Bible aimed at discipleship and additional
presentations of the gospel.
You might also try shortening the chronological storying
approach. Some storiers spend as much as 110 weeks working
through the Bible from creation to the consummation of the
ages. Could this be reduced either by choosing fewer stories or
by offering the stories more frequently? Perhaps both methods
could be implemented. This might reduce the time required for
a church start from two years to a few weeks!
In the same manner, consider compressing a 12-week evan-
gelistic Bible study into a 12-night Bible study. You get the pic-
ture. Remember, speed of reproduction is one of the universal
characteristics of a Church Planting Movement. Resist the
assumption that greater speed equals diminished quality. The
notion that slower is better isn’t necessarily true.
You also can accelerate church planting by raising the expec-
tations and church-planting responsibilities of new believers. In
a Church Planting Movement, discipleship and leadership
development are ongoing processes rather than stages in a lin-

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 55 CHAPTER 8

ear progression that individuals must pass through before they
can begin planting churches themselves. Remember, in a Church
Planting Movement in India, one new believer planted 42
churches in a single year. No one told him he was too spiritually
immature for such behavior!
Finally, some missionaries may find themselves in a situation
that does not appear to have any of the elements that indicate
potential for a Church Planting Movement. What do you do then?
Many of those factors that contribute to—or hinder—a
Church Planting Movement take years to develop or change.
Like a toy boat floating on a pond, if we gradually stack pebbles
on top of it, one by one, the weight will eventually become too
much and the vessel will submerge. So it is with Church Planting
Movements. Working steadily to add elements that contribute to
a Church Planting Movement and removing known obstacles
may someday result in a critical mass that transforms the situa-
tion from a hard, dry, unproductive field into a dynamic Church
Planting Movement.
The beginning point for this change is a spiritual renewal, a
passionate desire in the heart of every missionary to see all the
peoples of the world come to saving faith. Only when our vision
is revived and we hunger for a Church Planting Movement are we
willing to take any and every action necessary to pursue this goal.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 56 CHAPTER 8

9 A CPM VISION FOR THE WORLD
od has shown us that He is indeed doing something in our

G days among the peoples of the earth—something so amazing

we would not have believed it had we not seen it with our
own eyes (see Hab. 1:5). We are calling this amazing thing
Church Planting Movements. Church Planting Movements are
not limited to a geographical or racial sector of society. God has
demonstrated that He can produce them among urban or rural,
educated or illiterate people on any continent and from any reli-
gious background. The universal link in each of them is God rec-
onciling the world to Himself through Christ Jesus.
Along the way, He has called us to be co-laborers with Him.
If we are willing, He may grace us further to see Church Planting
Movements unfold throughout the world in our generation.
Over the past five years, in as few as five Church Planting
Movements, nearly a quarter of a million lost souls have come to
faith in Jesus Christ. Imagine 50 Church Planting Movements—
or 500! The excitement, however, is not in the numbers, not even
when we consider that these numbers represent individuals
coming to new life in Christ. The greatest joy comes in being on
mission with God in His redemptive plan for the nations—serv-
ing as His instruments in this unfolding miracle of salvation that
is being extended to all peoples. It is for this joy that we press on.
Marathon runners usually begin their race with great enthu-
siasm. Before long, however, many drop out or slow down. But
some runners stride on through the pain and exhaustion. For
these enduring athletes, there is no more exhilarating sight than
the homestretch. When they see it, their pulse quickens, their
pace strengthens and their adrenaline surges as they drive them-

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 57 CHAPTER 9

selves forward to the finish line.
The body of Christ has been running a great race for nearly
2,000 years. Along the way, many believers have grown weary
and distracted. Instead of pressing ahead, they have become sat-
isfied with a slowing pace.
A growing number of Christians today are observing signs
that we may be entering the homestretch. God is pouring out His
spirit among the nations (see Acts 2:17). Those who interpret
these Church Planting Movements as signs of His divine inter-
vention in history are re-examining their lives and redoubling
their efforts.
Simply put, if this is of God, we want to be a part of it.
Entering the homestretch, we find our pulse quickening, our
pace strengthening and our resolve heightened.

“Let us then throw off everything

that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles and let us run
with perseverance the race marked
out before us.” (Heb. 12:1, NIV)

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 58 CHAPTER 9

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS GLOSSARY
Cell churches—small church bodies of believers, generally 10-30 per
unit, meeting in homes or storefronts, fulfilling the five purposes of a
church and linked to one another in some type of structured network.
Often this network is part of a larger, single church identity.
Chronological Bible storying—a method of evangelizing a people by
relating to them, in a culturally suitable manner, the great stories of the
Bible from creation to redemption to the return of Christ.
Church Planting Movement—a rapid and exponential increase of
indigenous churches planting churches within a given people group or
population segment.
End-vision—the ultimate and overarching aim of a strategy or plan of
action. In a CPM-oriented strategy, it is the end-vision that informs and
measures the relative value of every objective, goal and action step.
Ethos—the esprit d’corps or spirit of the group. In a CPM ethos, there is
an attitude and climate of opinion that passionately aspires toward a
Church Planting Movement.
Exogenous—originating outside of the local environment; foreign,
extraneous in origin.
Exponential growth—Growth characterized by each part multiplying
itself. Thus 2x2=4 and 4x4=16, etc., in exponential growth. This contrasts
with incremental growth.
Five purposes of a church—1) worship, 2) evangelistic and missionary
outreach, 3) education and discipleship, 4) ministry and 5) fellowship.
House churches—small bodies of approximately 10-30 believers meet-
ing in homes or storefronts, which (unlike cell groups) are generally
not organized under a single authority or hierarchy of authorities.
Incremental growth—growth by addition. Thus a base number of 10
churches might add a few churches each year. This contrasts with
exponential growth.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 59 GLOSSARY

Indigenous—generated from within or capable of originating from
within the local context. This contrasts with exogenous.
MAWL—Model, Assist, Watch and Leave. The rhythm of implement-
ing church planting that contributes to a Church Planting Movement as
a missionary models a CPM, assists the new believers in planting
CPM-oriented churches, watches to see that they and the churches are
reproducing and then leaves in order to begin a new MAWL cycle.
Mentoring—a form of teaching that includes walking alongside the
person you are teaching and inviting him or her to learn from your
example.
POUCH churches—a method of church planting describing churches
that are characterized by the following: participative Bible study and
worship groups, obedience to God’s word, development of unpaid
and multiple lay or bivocational church leaders and meeting in cell or
house churches.
Precision harvesting—a strategic placement of church planters in con-
tact with seekers or new believers who already have been identified
and cultivated through their response to mass evangelism.
Response filtering and feedback loops—employing methods for reg-
istering response to mass evangelism efforts for purposes of follow-
up discipleship and church planting.
RLTP (Rural Leadership Training Program)—a program of on-the-job
training for church planters and church leaders developed in Cambo-
dia aimed at practical, short-term modules of training designed to
keep students engaged in their ministry while they learn.
Strategy coordinator—a missionary who takes responsibility for
developing a comprehensive plan aimed at initiating and nurturing a
Church Planting Movement among an unreached people group or
population segment.
Subsidies—foreign funds used to support pastors and other church
workers. This is generally counterproductive for a Church Planting
Movement.

CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENTS 60 GLOSSARY

For additional copies of this booklet contact
IMB Resource Center:
• call 1-800-866-3621
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PP 10M 11/99 P3071