Why Plant Churches?
Waypoint Church launched in August of 2021. When a group of people set out to start new churches, it’s often called “Church Planting” because we are starting a growing and living community that grows over time. But you may be wondering, why plant more churches?
We plant because it’s biblical
Before concluding his earthly ministry, Jesus left his disciples with a mission. You can find the words of this great commission in Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus commanded them to #1) Go out to new places (to the nations), #2) Tell people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how to live for him (make disciples), and #3) Baptize them into the church (into a newly formed church).
And that’s exactly what they did! His followers went out and preached the Gospel, and people responded and believed! And do you know what they did after they believed? Acts 2:42 tells us they formed a church that “devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.”
Later in scripture, you can see a specific example of church planting in Crete. Paul and Titus travel to the Island of Crete to share the good news of Christ. And as people come to faith, Titus remains behind to appoint elders and to organize them into a church body (Titus 1:5).
We plant because churches are the main strategy of God’s Mission
A “church” isn’t a building; a church is a gathering of believers doing the things described in the book of Acts. Christopher Wright says, “It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission – God’s mission.”
Churches are God’s main strategy to accomplish his mission of bringing restoration to his creation. The world has fallen and is broken because of sin, but God is at work to reverse the fall. And he brings people into the church to renew them, and as they are renewed, they are sent into the world to be agents of restoration of the world’s brokenness.
Church plants help grow this movement by multiplication. On average, church plants reach eight times more new believers than established churches, which brings new people into God’s mission. A new church is a new outpost of God’s kingdom, reaching new people, new generations, and new cultures in new parts of the world.
We plant because it’s needed in our city
You might be thinking, “Aren’t their churches all over the place already?” And while there are churches all across our nation, statistics show we would need to start 3200 new churches each year, just to keep up with population growth (to keep the same number of churches per capita). We are currently netting only about 300 per year!
And this often comes as a surprise to anyone familiar with the large number of Christian ministries headquartered in Colorado Springs (80+). Still, only one in every five people in this part of town is Christian (that’s lower than Denver). It’s a very unreached part of our country. There are quite a few churches in town already, but there are 750,000 people in El Paso County, and the current churches are reaching only 16% of them. Not only is there already a great need, but more and more people are moving to town and will need a place to worship as Colorado Springs is expected to grow by an additional 10,000-15,000 people per year!
That’s why we plant churches! We’re excited for you to learn how you can be a part of our small outpost of God’s kingdom in town. And we want to be a church that plants more churches, so come help us grow and send out more churches to represent God’s restorative work in our city.
