Yesterday, I attended the orientation of Bayanihan Church Planting of the Philippine Challenge. This is an answer to my prayers to restart our church planting program. And indeed, I was deeply challenged to implement and join this effort.
“Bayanihan” is a term used by Filipinos for group work of community development. And this time, Philippine Challenge adopted the term for multiplying churches here in the Philippines. The term itself means, group work for church planting.
Gone are the days of expensive church planting, gone are the days of solo flight church planting. Now is the day of what we call, “Bayanihan Church Planting”.
One of the best first lessons that I have learned is all about church planting coaching. As a pastor myself, I will become the church planting coach of the team organized within my own church. The plan is great though there are still lots of things ahead of us.
Today, I want to present you the main reasons or the advantages of church planting coaching. Why do we need it? Why in the world do we need a coach in church planting?
I must admit, I am new to the system. My family is engaged in church planting for the last 30 years. Though I have heard about the term, “church planting coach”, this is really my first time to be submerged with the church planting effort called, “Bayanihan Church Planting”.
Advantages of Church Planting Coaching
- To come up with a plan – Obviously, a coach is someone who plans. Like a basketball coach, is the game master, someone who sees the overall game. He is someone who instruct the players to work out the game. They usually call it “the game plan”. In every church planting effort, there is also a game plan. And the coach is the one who lead the planning with the church planting team.
- To have accountability – Church planting coaching also provides accountability. The facilitators help the coaches and check if the plan was implemented. The coaches also monitors the work of the church planting team.
- To openly evaluate the work – The coaching program of Bayanihan Church Planting gives us the opportunity to evaluate the work. Learning from each other through experiences is one of the best avenues of improvements in church planting efforts.
- To have encouragement – Having a team and some other people who are engage in the same ministry can give us encouragement. Bayanihan Church Planting promotes corporate efforts and building up one another. Furthermore, the church planting team can also have a good distance from those who can cause them discouragement.
- To help solve church planting problems – If encouragement with one another can be boosted, how much more is the problem solving? Since there is an exchange of ideas from different teams, problem solving will be much easier to bear and implemented.
- To have better resources – This doesn’t necessarily pertains to financial resources. Bayanihan Church Planting aims to have the cheapest means of planting a church, that’s why getting more financial resources is not part of the plan. Manpower, materials, and encouragements, these are the resources that will become readily available with church planting coaching.
- To develop a good contextualized plan – Dependency to foreign materials for planning is discouraged with the church planting coaching. Different places can have different applicable strategies. Different church planting teams can also have different situations. And best of all, we develop plans according to the need and applicable strategies and not book by book.
- To boost spiritual life while church planting – Having a good back up people, the coach, the team leader and those people who have committed their lives for planting, there is just a lot of people whom you need to be accountable with in developing deeper spiritual disciplines. Furthermore, Bayanihan Church Planting provides a program in developing deeper spiritual discipline.
- To best model ministry skills on the job – The new believers are the best people to be members of the church planting team. They can be the most zealous people for the job. Team leaders and other christians who committed their lives for church planting can disciple them best in the field by showing to them exactly what has to be done in sharing the gospel for people, thus, you can be producing new ministers out of new believers.
- To be more prayerful – Bayanihan Church Planting encourages prayer. We have a prayer time in every meeting. The program also require each one to pray for the church planting team and for their target baranggays.
Church planting movements have never been so fun. Having fellowship with other people who have the same interest and passion is truly a spiritual corporate work.
hi pastor vince,
am really blessed with your articles and blog
learning a lot from your writings
hope to see you soon
want to learn from more from you
Thanks sir Chinkee. Never thought that a prominent man like you will be reading my blog. 🙂 More blessings to you sir!!!
If one can’t count the high cost of being a pastor, then he should never even try as one!!!!!
One main reason why churches don’t grow:
http://www.sermonnotebook.org/old%20testament/2%20Chronicles%207_14.htm
That’s why it’s a “calling” right??? 🙂
And it doesn’t mean that it can be that way that it “should” be that way right? 🙂
From: Barnes’ Notes on the NT
EPHESIANS 4:4
There is one body—One church—for so the word “body” means here—denoting the body of Christ; see the notes on Rom. 12:5; compare notes on Eph. 1:23. The meaning here is, that as there is really but one church on earth, there ought to be unity. The church is, at present, divided into many denominations. It has different forms of worship, and different rites and ceremonies. It embraces those of different complexions and ranks in life, and it cannot be denied that there are often unhappy contentions and jealousies in different parts of that church. Still, there is but one—“one holy, catholic (i. e., universal) church;” and that church should feel that it is one. Christ did not come to redeem and save different churches, and to give them a different place in heaven. He did not come to save the Episcopal communion merely or the Presbyterian or the Methodist communions only; nor did he leave the world to fit up for them different mansions in heaven. He did not come to save merely the black man, or the red, or the white man; nor did he leave the world to set up for them separate mansions in the skies. He came that he might collect into one community a multitude of every complexion, and from every land, and unite them in one great brotherhood on earth, and ultimately assemble them in the same heaven. The church is one. Every sincere Christian is a brother in that church, and has an equal right with all others to its privileges. Being one by the design of the Saviour they should be one in feeling; and every Christian, no matter what his rank, should be ready to hail every other Christian as a fellow-heir of heaven.
One Spirit—The Holy Spirit. There is one and the self-same Spirit that dwells in the church The same Spirit has awakened all enlightened all; convicted all; converted all. Wherever they may be, and whoever, yet there has been substantially the same work of the Spirit on the heart of every Christian. There are circumstantial differences arising from diversities of temperament, disposition, and education; there may be a difference in the depth and power of his operations on the soul; there may be a difference in the degree of conviction for sin and in the evidence of conversion, but still there are the same operations on the heart essentially produced by the same Spirit; see the notes on 1 Cor. 12:6-11. All the gifts of prayer, and of preaching; all the zeal, the ardor, the love, the self-denial in the church, are produced by the same Spirit. There should be, therefore, unity. The church is united in the agency by which it is saved; it should be united in the feelings which influence its members.
Even as ye are called—see Eph. 4:1. The sense is, “there is one body and one spirit, in like manner as there is one hope resulting from your calling.” The same notion of oneness is found in relation to each of these things.
In one hope of your calling—In one hope “resulting from” your being called into his kingdom. On the meaning of the word “hope,” see notes on Eph. 2:12. The meaning here is, that Christians have the same hope, and they should therefore be one. They are looking forward to the same heaven; they hope for the same happiness beyond the grave. It is not as on earth among the people of the world, where, there is a variety of hopes—where one hopes for pleasure, and another for honor, and another for gain; but there is the prospect of the same inexhaustible joy. This “hope” is suited to promote union. There is no rivalry—for there is enough for all. “Hope” on earth does not always produce union and harmony. Two men hope to obtain the same office; two students hope to obtain the same honor in college; two rivals hope to obtain the same hand in marriage—and the consequence is jealousy, contention, and strife. The reason is, that but one can obtain the object. Not so with the crown of life—with the rewards of heaven. All may obtain “that” crown; all may share those rewards. How “can” Christians contend in an angry manner with each other, when the hope of dwelling in the same heaven swells their bosoms and animates their hearts?
From: Barnes’ Notes on the NT
1 CORINTHIANS 12:13
For by one Spirit—That is, by the agency or operation of the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, we have been united into one body. The idea here is the same as that presented above 1 Cor. 12:7, 11, by which all the endowments of Christians are traced to the same Spirit. Paul here says, that that Spirit had so endowed them as to fit them to constitute one body, or to be united in one, and to perform the various duties which resulted from their union in the same Christian church. The idea of its having been done by one and the same Spirit is kept up and often presented, in order that the endowments conferred on them might be duly appreciated.
Are we all—Every member of the church, whatever may be his rank or talents, has received his endowments from the same Spirit.
Baptized into one body—Many suppose that there is reference here to the ordinance of baptism by water. But the connection seems rather to require us to understand it of the baptism of the Holy Spirit Matt. 3:11; and if so, it means, that by the agency of the Holy Spirit, they had all been suited, each to his appropriate place, to constitute the body of Christ—the church. If, however, it refers to the ordinance of baptism, as Bloomfield, Calvin, Doddridge, etc. suppose, then it means, that by the very profession of religion as made at baptism, by there being but one baptism Eph. 4:5, they had all professedly become members of one and the same body. The former interpretation, however, seems to me best to suit the connection.
Whether we be Jews or Gentiles—There is no difference. All are on a level. In regard to the grand point, no distinction is made, whatever may have been our former condition of life.
Bond or free—It is evident that many who were slaves were converted to the Christian faith. Religion, however, regarded all as on a level; and conferred no favors on the free which it did not on the slave. It was one of the happy lessons of Christianity, that it taught people that in the great matters pertaining to their eternal interests they were on the same level. This doctrine would tend to secure, more than anything else could, the proper treatment of those who were in bondage, and of those who were in humble ranks of life. At the same time it would not diminish, but would increase their real respect for their masters, and for those who were above them, if they regarded them as fellow Christians, and destined to the same heaven; see the note at 1 Cor. 7:22.
And have been all made to drink …—This probably refers to their partaking together of the cup in the Lord’s Supper. The sense is, that by their drinking of the same cup commemorating the death of Christ, they had partaken of the same influences of the Holy Spirit, which descend alike on all who observe that ordinance in a proper manner. They had shown also, that they belonged to the same body, and were all united together; and that however various might be their graces and endowments, yet they all belonged to the same great family.
On Deadly Denominational Divisiveness and Distinctiveness
In the name and game of demanding “localized love and loyalty” for a denomination/local church, overlording exclusivist churches and church leaders , if not, emperialist, extremist , and elitist like this:
http://www.gotquestions.org/landmarkism-Baptist-bride.html
would rather commit the Corinthian carnality as diagnosed by St. Pau in:
1 Corinthians 3
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
1 Corinthians 1
12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
1 Corinthians 12
12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
14 For the body is not one member, but many.
Ephesians 4
4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Deadly denominational divisiveness and distinctiveness have reduced the church into frozen, fossilized, formalized feudal fascist fiefdoms!!! They violate the highly priestly prayer of Christ before He was sacrificed, particularly the part where He prayed:
John 17
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Some main reasons to get out of church:
http://www.spiritualabuse.com/
http://www.spiritualabuse.com/?page_id=58
http://www.spiritualabuse.com/?page_id=45
http://www.spiritualabuse.com/?page_id=46
http://www.spiritualabuse.com/?page_id=50
Well, you will be hearing a lot of these things from people. But in my point of view, being a son of a pastor myself, and now a pastor too, I frequently see that pastors (most, but not all), are more abused than what the members claim.
Just come to think of this, why do we have few pastors? Was it because there is no money? Nope… it simply because pastoral ministry is difficult. And most often, you will be abused with all kinds of abuses that you can imagine. Not to mention that you become the live credit card and atm card. I think to be fair with the posted links, we need to see the perspective of the pastors on the other end. That’s the only way to see the whole thing or else, we will become biased.
And worst thing, nobody will become pastors anymore.
Another main reason why people get out of the church:
http://thedisciplers.com/overseer-or-overlord-by-augusto-y-hermosilla/
Well, there could really be lots of reasons why people get out of the church. These are the most common.
Problematic reasons:
1. Claims that he is not blessed with the messages of the pastor.
2. Conflicts with the pastor.
3. Conflicts with other members.
4. Incompatibility of religious ideals, and all the more doctrines.
5. Major split of the church.
The OK reasons, I mean no problem at all:
1. Transfer of residency.
2. A member who became a pastor or a worker of a daughter church or another church.
3. A single member who married another Christian from another church.
Again, there could be hundred of reasons. But not all should be attributed to pastors. Most pastors (if not all) only tries to do their job, to keep the flocks from getting lost. Unfortunately, not all people have a positive response to corrections which sometimes results to conflicts and incompatibilities.
Was the pastor jealous or possessive? No I don’t think so. It’s really the least if not, it is just a wrong presumption. Pastors want to maintain biblical standards (at least to what he knows). And part of it is keeping and encouraging members to function as a part of the body (local church).
Just to make it clear. It is not the Universal Church that disciples people, it is the local church. Universal Church only functions as the one that keep the bonds or the links between other churches even of different denominations. But certainly, one cannot use it as a reason to transfer to another church.
Let us leave the Universal Church alone whenever we feel like transferring. Or else we will only perverting its doctrines.
The Organic Church vs. The “New Testament” Church
by Gene Edwards
The most sacred of all cows is now challenged . . . the need of a “New Testament” church. Here is the New Testament church, i.e. the church that is organic. When the early churches were being formed, there was no New Testament in existence. Here is a new wrinkle on the evangelical brain—a totally new, better, and more scriptural way for the church to be born and to grow. The organic church, one that is wonderful, exciting and natural to God’s people, and totally different to the way churches are raised up in modern times. There is a DNA of the church, and when she is raised up organically, she is a living creature, not a structure—the church spontaneous.
The reason for this book: to bring to us a totally new beginning for the body of Christ.
http://seedsowers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=245&osCsid=a96b47808153df7236247bd1b24441ed
http://www.geneedwards.org/
Correction of a link above:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=420050816638
Deadly and divisive denominationalism has been the curse that prevented that kind of networking kind of church planting!!!
Also, pastors are so possessive of their parishioners, so jealous if their members would attend and fellowship among others not in their local church or denomination!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=804062707¬es_tab=app_2347471856#!/note.php?note_id=420050816638
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BVAhjv5v_Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZZ6BpXmIpg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLpVqqluO3Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePV6VNWl8_0&feature=related
We don’t call it possessive, we call it “ethics”, “love” and “loyalty”. There is no family that wants their children to be going to other families to feed. People can always transfer from one church to another. But transferring all the time is “not” what the Bible encourages. The term and the idea of “Universal Church” has been abused a lot these days. Misconception has arose without understanding the value and the meaning of local church. It’s not about denomination, it is about becoming a “part” of the family where there is “commitment” there is “laboring with one another”, and all the more “building up” one another for Christ”.
Being a part of the body (church) is one of the basic foundation of Christian growth. It is where you are going to feed from God’s word. Growing together as mature Christian. Those who avoid “commitments” and those who avoid “work” in the church are those people who use to transfer or attend to another church, which is NOT a Biblical model.
If one transfer to another church, so be it. But it should not be going to one church to another in different Sundays. Of course, there are exemptions like if you are a church planter. Or you work in different places every week. Well, I hope we are getting the idea here.
Again, it’s not “possessive” nor “jealousy”. It is about “commitment”, “loyalty to the family” and “responsibility” as part of the body. Please note that I did not say, “loyalty to the pastor”, because it is not about the pastor, it is about the body.