The “Church Planting” terminology just seems like an old-fashioned, traditional approach, not out of the ordinary. It is true that there have been countless successful and innovative church planters. But the expression “church planting” seems very unattractive.

When I begin to think about planting, I picture a sweaty, blistered man struggling to make his way through the fields sowing seeds with a hopeful optimism that all the agricultural aspects of a successful harvest are present. Granted, building a church is hard work and requires an extremely dedicated and resilient person. But our mindset needs to be adjusted a bit to think that building a church is more than just a painful and arduous task that has to be slow and sometimes even unproductive. Look at the words of Jesus as he begins to encourage the disciples to reach out to the lost, John 4:34,36.

Jesus said, “The food that keeps me going is my doing the will of him who sent me, finishing the work he started. If you look around you right now, wouldn’t you say that in about four months it will be time to reap the harvest?” Well, I’m telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you. [36] “The Harvester is not waiting. He is collecting his pay, reaping this grain that is ripe for eternal life. Now the Sower is arm in arm with the Harvester, triumphant. That is the truth of the saying: ‘This one sows, that one you reap.’ I sent you to harvest a field you never worked. Without lifting a finger, you have entered a field worked long and hard by others.”

In this text he breaks ALL the typical sowing and reaping rules.

1. Successful church growth must take a long time. “…wouldn’t you say that in about four months it will be harvest time?” What Jesus is saying here is that according to your preconceived ideas of planting and reaping, there are laws that should prevent you from experiencing growth. It is unfortunate that the guy who is experiencing rapid growth is always accused of doing something wrong. “Oh well, they’re not really a church. They’re just a social club.” Or the increasingly popular accusation “They really aren’t preaching the message anymore!” By doing this and mischaracterizing church planters who are experiencing tremendous growth, we have almost cut off the possibility of our churches experiencing similar results. When we look at the first church in the book of Acts growing from 120 to 3,000 in the blink of an eye, we have to wonder if these statements were accurate (Acts 2:41). The growth of the church of the book of Acts is further described as “increasing daily” (Acts 2:47). It’s a sobering question often worth asking. “Are we like the church in the book of Acts?”

2. Sometimes we just have to wait for growth to happen. “the harvester is not waiting…” There are countless fields that have already been planted, watered and are waiting for some brave and daring individual to step in and harvest the fields. I would never want to minimize the work of those who have diligently plowed the fields and opened doors of opportunity for others to pass through, but there are fields that are white and ripe for harvest. Jesus is asking the question “What are you waiting for?” Our prayer should be that God opens our eyes to see the hungry masses who are longing for someone to come to them and offer them that hope that his heart has been searching for.

Lady Liberty stands in New York Harbor with this inscription on her base-

Give me your tiredness, you poor,

Your huddled masses, longing to breathe freely,

The wretched refuse of your overflowing riverbank,

Send these, the wanderers, storm-tossed,

I raise my lamp by the golden gate.

This so aptly describes the spiritual state of people all over the world. They are hungry, homeless, longing to breathe a life of spiritual freedom. As God’s church we have what you are looking for, but we have to be more than an immovable statue standing with the Light lifted in the air. We cannot wait for the lost to come to the Light, we must bring the Light to the lost.

3. Our growth will be equal to how much we work- “I sent you to mow a field you never worked”. I know this may sound like a misleading statement and some may perceive church growth as winning the lottery of evangelism. But again, let me emphasize, planting a church is extremely hard work and not for the lazy! But understand that this is not simply a secular career or something that can be done with just our own personal gifts and talents. This is more than doing a work for God, it is doing a work with God. Your growth is not confined or limited to the amount of work you do, but is connected to a God who is capable of giving growth that breaks all the laws of nature. We see throughout the book of Acts that the first “church planters” many times found themselves walking into a city and entire communities were transformed by their message. It’s easy for us to conclude that it was more than just hard work, sweat and perseverance. This happened because God gave increase.

There are principles and truths that we must bring out in the early church. Our mission is never to redefine or change the church to what we think it should be, but to rediscover what the church was in the book of Acts and use it as our model. We must be a living, breathing body that is willing to change our approaches and methods, while still holding fast to the message of Jesus Christ.