I’m Not Planting a Church
Don’t let the title of this post fool you. We’re still starting Project Church. (Exhale)
But there’s a big difference between a typical church plant and Project Church (and others like us). I plan to explore some of the key differences this week on my blog.
Difference #1
Our goal is not to plant a church; it’s to spark a movement.
Our community of faith goes public at a downtown coffee shop in a few weeks. We don’t have much money, we have no plans to send out mailers, and we aren’t putting on a big production. Despite that, we expect to grow.
Our hope isn’t to plant one church and grow it. Our aim is to begin another expression of church, and another, and another. I’m crazy enough to believe that God could begin something in Rapid City, South Dakota that could spread beyond our city limits, state line, and national borders.
Ambitious? Yes. Impossible? No.
To put it another way.
Let’s say a typical church plant grows to 2000 people. They would consider a way to get them all into their school gym with multiple services or look at purchasing a building to seat them all. Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, that would be pretty cool.
But we’re a little different (and we’re okay with that).
Let’s say Project Church grows to 2000 people. Our preference would be to spread out and have 10 churches of 200 or 20 churches of 100. We then would hope those churches would grow and start new churches and so on.
This isn’t a revolutionary concept but it’s not typical either. If we want this in our DNA, we need to embed it from the start.
What do you think? Obviously there are many more details to this but this is a snapshot of one of the differences between us and your typical church plant.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about another difference- Why our corporate gatherings will be more like “half-time” than “game day.”
10 Comments to I’m Not Planting a Church
I def agree to this approach and I think that it will be the way to organically grow a dynamic movement in the future.
Great post Jason. Your title threw me for a bit! 
Praying for you.
I love it, Jason! We’re cheering for the movement to begin.
@blendahtom - First of all, that’s a cool name. I can tell that you’re feelin’ what I’m sayin’
@Brad - Don’t you have it when people do that with titles? Thanks my friend.
@Shawn - Dude - Thanks for the encouragement. It means a lot- especially from a local.
Hey Man!
I love this! I went to the Project Church website and I really dig what you’re going to do. You’ll have to work like crazy to not conform to the traditional standard practices, but I know you and your team is up for the challenge.
Praying for you bro!
-Shaun
What do I think? HELL YES! It’s about time!
I LOVE your strategy and philosophy with this Jason. Feels a lot more people and big “C” Church centered, than leader and personality centered.
I feel your model is more biblical than the alternative - just sayin’. And I pray that you have great success! in Jesus’ Name!
@Shaun King - Thanks for the prayers and you are so right. To not conform may be our biggest challenge because it happens so easily. I’m pumped for you and Courageous Church as well.
CourtneyMon, August 18, 2008
Brilliant!! I love it when churches aim to birth new Christians, new pastors and new churches rather than hoping to achieve mega church status. There are a lot of people who want to go to black hole churches, but it’s not healthy. Close knit congregations are so much more effective in real personal growth and accountability.
Continuing to pray for you and your team!
@Jesse - I like your passion Jesse. You are definitely feelin’ me.
@Courtney - Community is one of our core values. Thanks for the prayers.
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- jasonsalamun: Two families are disconnecting from Project Church to do house church because I said I want us to grow. I say good riddance.
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Mon, August 18, 2008