Americans are in the grip of a passion for starting or “planting” new churches. The movement is among the most active and passionate in American Christianity and includes a variety of denominations and faith traditions. The push promises to shape not just religious life, but society as a whole, as new congregations work to influence and assist the communities around them.

Certainly, this is not the first era in which church planting has been intense in the U.S., but rather it is part of a cyclical pattern. And the current effort is not limited to our borders; Christians are busy planting churches throughout the world – at times secretly, as in China, but elsewhere as well. The drive to start new churches at home affects this nation in a way that evangelism abroad does not, though, and it bears special notice.

Church “planters,” as they are called, are Johnny Appleseeds, hoping the seeds they sow will mature into trees to feed many people. Planters focus more on people than on buildings. Church plants commonly meet in coffee shops, schools, office buildings and hotels. A year-old church in the Portland, Ore., suburb of Tigard, meets in a neighborhood pub; during the week, the 120 members avidly keep in touch through web forums.

This latest movement inspires ambitious plans: Some institutions have goals of planting thousands of new churches. Planters envision new churches spawning other new churches that spawn still more new ones in a viral progression. The motto of Lake Ridge Church in the Atlanta suburb of Cumming, Ga., is, “Our vision is to glorify God by planting a missional church that will eventually plant other churches.”

Church plants can include a number of features:
• Evangelical and Pentecostal denominations, burning to spread the gospel and win converts, contribute most church plants, especially big Baptist churches that can sponsor new congregations and train members to launch them.
• Mainline denominations plant churches in hope of boosting and diversifying membership and shifting their focus away from the maintenance of shrinking churches.
• Church planters come to their task from a variety of backgrounds. The movement depends heavily on players from outside the traditional hierarchy, including lay leaders and parachurch organizations. Many church planters are ordained clergy or lay leaders with denominational support. Others are entrepreneurs weary of or at odds with institutional religion.
• Most plants are in suburbs, though planters don’t always use demographic research to scout locations. Research might identify the direction of urban growth so a church can buy property and wait for the suburbs to reach it.
• Many planters focus efforts on ethnic or immigrant communities — particularly Latinos, Koreans, East Indians and Africans. The Episcopal Church, for example, has begun numerous Sudanese churches. GenX leaders often begin urban, multicultural plants, following the “emerging church” model that embraces spiritual questioning, new forms of worship and youth culture.

Why it matters

New church plants have the potential to reshape U.S. churchgoing and affect the communities churches are locating in, whether they are new suburbs or urban areas previously abandoned by churches. Scholars say that most recent church growth is within the few largest churches, but the planting movement also is built on the premise of stimulating huge growth, albeit through the creation of many smaller churches.

Questions for reporters

• Consider a story comparing a new, small church with an example of the other big phenomenon in church growth – megachurches.
• The planting movement is fun to cover because of the fervent passion and expression of many lay people and clergy involved. Their pioneering enthusiasm is charismatic; stories of new beginnings, as young churches with high ideals take off, make excellent coverage and they highlight interesting trends in contemporary religion – evangelism, grassroots religious leadership and the exploration by Protestants outside structural conventions.
• Little is known about church planting from an academic perspective, so it’s early for a definitive overview. Still, reaching several national leaders representing a variety of views may help give a bigger picture.
• Planting is difficult work, requiring unusual individuals with superb social skills, great passion, resistance to failure and the charisma to attract and hold a community. Parachurch organizations and planting mentors help enormously with training and financial and moral support. Consider profiling a new planter and a mentor who are working together, or writing about a group of would-be planters going through training, then re-visit them in a year.
• Church plantings are also called church “starts.” “Multiplication” is another term used. Many churches approach the subject through offices on growth. Most denominations have a church planting office or research office asking, “Where can we put new churches? Where’s the growth? Where is our population moving to?” Consider calling these growth experts at the national offices of denominations that interest you to learn how your local churches fit into their plans.
• Consider focusing on the trend in using lay planters to begin new churches by finding such church starts locally and talking with national experts about what you find.

Background

• Faith Communities Today (FACT), based at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, in 2000 involved researchers and religious leaders in a survey of 14,300 American congregations of all faiths and denominations. The survey has been updated; new results are due soon. FACT can provide information about megachurches (Protestant churches claiming 2,000 or more attending weekly worship), which have been growing at the same time as the planting of small churches has increased.

ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS

• Hartford Institute for Religion Research posts articles on church growth.
• Read “Why I coach church planters,” an article by the Rev. Gary Scheer, at Stadia: New Church Strategies’ site.
• At the Mississippi Baptists’ site, read a July 8, 2005, editorial by Richard H. Harris, vice president of church planting for the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board. Harris describes the SBC’s planting rationale and makes the case for lay-led church plants:

• Read a Sept. 25, 2003, Florida Baptist Witness article about “PowerPlant,” a program to train youngsters in church planting.
• Read a May 10, 2005, Religion News Service article, “Scholar: Southern Baptist Evangelism Has ‘Discernible Deterioration,’” posted on Beliefnet.com. The article reports the research findings of Thom S. Rainer, noted conservative Christian author and former dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth in Louisville, Ky., that evangelism in the Southern Baptist Convention is declining as measured by new baptisms.
• Read “‘Don’t Be Afraid to Empower Women’: Women may hold the key to growth, says Korea’s David Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church.” at Beliefnet.com The article is reprinted from Charisma News Service.

National sources

PARACHURCH ORGANIZATIONS

Parachurch organizations are quasi-denominational national or regional networks that represent new forms of institutional cooperation. “Paras” usually work with, not for, denominations. They play a critical role in screening, coordinating, training, financing, supporting and mentoring pastors and lay volunteers. Some are not-for-profit; others are conventional businesses.
• See a Wikipedia definition and list of parachurch organizations.
• See the Hartford Institute for Religion Research‘s page on parachurch organizations.
• Stadia: New Church Strategies is a California-based parachurch organization that finds, trains, deploys and supports church planters. The 51-year-old organization began as the Northern California Evangelistic Association. It aims at a “church multiplication movement” through regional networks of church planters. It is affiliated with the nondenominational Christian Churches and Churches of Christ movements. Stadia’s goal is to build 5,500 new churches by 2025. Read Stadia’s pre-assessment brochure and pre-screening form. Stadia’s three-day, $1,200 church-planting lab is the organization’s system for training church planting leaders, coaches and mentors and building church multiplication leaders who can plant reproducible Christian Churches across North America. Contact the Rev. Bob Harrington, national network and planter care director, 615-790-0104, bharrington@stadia.cc.
• Passion for Planting is a church-planting support ministry begun in 2002 by planters from New Life Christian Church in Centreville, Va. The nonprofit provides organizational resources, consulting and project management services for newly formed churches. Contact Pat Furgerson, 866-342-5264, pat@church-planting.net. Passion for Planting is one of the organizing forces behind the 2006 National New Church Conference April 25-27 in Orlando, Fla., billed as “the largest gathering of church-planting leaders in North America.” Contact Terri Saliba, Terri@church-planting.net.
• SeedStories, based in Australia, draws participation from the United States. It aims to be a global church-planting community.
• House to House is a publishing organization owned by DOVE Christian Fellowship International in Lititz, Pa., focused on helping people involved with small groups (cell groups) and house churches. Contact Ron Myer, a church-planting specialist on the leadership team: 717-627-1996, ronm@DCFI.org.
• Church Plant Media in Columbia, Mo., is a web company that works with church plants. Contact Dustin Stearman, 800-409-6631.

CHURCHES

Most denominations and many churches have offices of church growth. Here are a few:
• The Vineyard Community of Churches has a 20-year history of planting 850 churches. Read about Vineyard’s origins. Steve Nicholson is national church planting coordinator and senior pastor of the Evanston, Ill., Vineyard, which he and his wife, Cindy, helped plant. They also helped begin churches in the Chicago neighborhoods of Humboldt Park, Lincoln Park and Hyde Park; Mundelein, Joliet and Downer’s Grove, Ill.; and churches in Washington, D.C., Minnesota, England, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Contact 847-328-4544, steven@evanstonvineyard.org.
• The Missionary Church, based in Fort Wayne, Ind., is an evangelical church committed to church planting and world missions. It has 180,000 members in 1,700 congregations worldwide, roughly 400 of them in the U.S. Bill Malick founded the Church Multiplication Training Center. Contact Greg Getz, director of the pastoral leadership program, 260-747-2027, pliadmin@mcusa.org.
• The Christian and Missionary Alliance, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., has churches in every state, with about 350,000 believers in nearly 2,000 churches. Contact Michael D. “Mick” Noel, assistant vice president who directs multiplication, 719-599-5999, ChurchMultiplication@cmalliance.org.
• The North American Baptist Conference, with offices in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., is a family of some 400 churches with about 74,000 attendees in the U.S. and Canada. Church planting is an emphasis. See the denomination’s resources on planting. Contact Dan Wesolowski, 630-495-2000 ext. 213.
• The Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board oversees church planting for the denomination. The web site has information in two areas: The church-planting group, which trains, plans, supports and mentors church planters, and the church-planting “village,” an online resource area. See a list of SBC staff in charge of various aspects of church planting, including many ethnic or cultural affinity churches. Contact Van Kicklighter, vkicklighter@namb.net, field partner service rep, an expert in lay participation in church planting, or Jose “Joe” Antonio Hernandez of Alpharetta, Ga., who directs the church planting group’s mentoring team, 770-410-6217, jhernandez@namb.net.
• The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a mainline Protestant denomination, has started about 350 new congregations in the last four years, representing the denomination’s fastest growth since the late 19th century. The church plants are diverse, with Hispanic, Asian, Haitian, African-American and Anglo members. Contact Rick Morse, team leader for New Church Ministry, in Indianapolis, 317-713-2520, rmorse@churchextension.org.
• The United Methodist Church directs church planting through its office of new church development. That office is part of the Evangelization and Church Growth unit of the General Board of Global Ministries, directed by the Rev. Sam Dixon. Contact Dixon, 212-870-3848.
• At The Evangelical Free Church of America, Kathy Carter is in charge of USA Church Planting. Contact Carter at the Minneapolis headquarters, 800-745-2202, churchplanting@efca.org.

INDIVIDUALS

• Todd Hunter is president of Alpha USA, which provides an introductory course in Christianity used in 7,000 churches nationwide, and former president of Vineyard USA. Hunter has been involved in church planting and leadership development for 25 years. He’s in Eagle, Idaho. Contact 208-377-1721, toddhunter@alphausa.org.
• Author and researcher C. Kirk Hadaway is director of research for the Episcopal Church Center. He has written widely on the subject of church growth and also worked with the United Church of Christ and Southern Baptist denominations. Contact 212-922-5331, khadaway@episcopalchurch.org.
• Donald E. Miller is Firestone Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California, executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture and director of the university’s school of religion. His books include Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium (University of California Press, 1999), for which he studied the Vineyard, Calvary Chapel and Hope Chapel. Contact 213-740-8562, crcc@usc.edu.
• Scott Cormode, assistant dean for institutional research at the Claremont School of Theology, can discuss church growth. His Almond Springs web site has case studies to help clergy and others think through issues common to church growth and life. Contact 909-447-2532, scormode@cst.edu.
• Scott Thumma, an expert on church growth and new religious structures at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, says that the vast majority of Americans see religious identity as flexible – something that individuals can assemble for themselves, apart from institutions or denominations – and that new forms such as megachurches and church planting can be seen in the light of this American insistence on individuality of experience. Contact 860-509-9571, sthumma@hartsem.edu.
• The Rev. Gary Scheer, senior minister at Victor Valley Christian Church in Hesperia, Calif., coaches and mentor church planters. Contact 760-244-4448, gscheer@vvcc.com.
• The Rev. Ed Stetzer wrote Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003) and Planting Missional Churches (Broadman & Holman, to be published in May 2006). He is missions specialist and research team director at the North American Missions Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and is also a pastor at Lake Ridge Church, which he helped found in Cumming, Ga., an Atlanta suburb. Contact 770-410-6378, estetzer@namb.net.
• Ian Evison is director of research at the Alban Institute, a Herndon, Va. ecumenical, interfaith organization that supports congregations through book publishing, educational seminars, consulting services and research. Ask what research Alban has done in the areas of church growth and new church starts. Contact 800-486-1318 or 703-964-2700.
• The Rev. Joe Samuel Ratliff is pastor of the 12,000-member Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston. He is also chairman of the board of trustees for Morehouse College’s School of Religion. He is co-author of Church Planting in the African American Community (Judson Press, 2002). Contact him through his executive assistant, Vernastene J. Davis, 713-852-1412, vjdavis@brentwoodbaptist.org.
• The Rev. Michael F. Thurman is pastor of Montgomery, Ala.’s historic Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led. Previously, Thurman was the Southern Baptist Convention’s leader for African-American church planting. Contact 334-263-3970, Dexterchurch@bellsouth.net.
• The Rev. Hozell C. Francis is pastor of New Vision Community Church in Inglewood, Calif. He wrote Church Planting in the African-American Context (Zondervan, 1999). Contact 323-737-0178.
• James Sok is a church planting and development strategist for the Illinois Baptist State Association. Sok, who is Korean-American, works with Asian-American churches and leads seminars nationally for Asian-American planters and those who will train them. His office is in Springfield. Contact 630-452-5100, jamessok_4@hotmail.com.
• Uriah Kim is professor of Hebrew Bible at the Hartford Seminary’s Center for Faith in Practice. He can discuss movements and trends in Korean-American Christian churches. Contact 860-509-9500, ukim@hartsem.edu.
• Charles Ridley is a professor in the department of counseling and educational psychology at the Indiana University, Bloomington school of education. He studies and teaches the integration of psychology and theology and can discuss the psychological attributes of successful church planters. Contact 812-856-8340 (office) or 812-856-8300 (department).

Regional sources

IN THE NORTHEAST

• Mark Overmyer is director of church planting at the New England District of the Evangelical Free Church of America. Contact mobiewan@metrocast.net.
• Professor Cynthia A. Woolever, a sociologist of religious organizations at the Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Conn., co-wrote A Field Guide to U.S. Congregations: Who’s Going Where and Why (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). Contact 860-509-9545, woolever@hartsem.edu.
• Cheryl Townsend Gilkes is a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She is an expert on black churches. Ask her about African-American participation in the planting of new churches. Contact 207-872-4715, ctgilkes@colby.edu.

IN THE EAST

• The Rev. Edward P. Harding Jr. recently completed a new church start for the Presbyterian Church – Prince George’s Community Church in Springdale, Md. He was formerly pastor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Mass. Contact 301-306-0064, pastor@pgcchurch.org.
• Manuel Ortiz, professor emeritus in the field of practical theology from Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pa., has focused his work on multicultural churches and the religious lives of American Hispanics. Contact 800-373-0119.
• The Rev. Donald Paul Sullins is a former Episcopal priest who was ordained into the Catholic priesthood in 2002. He is assistant professor of sociology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and has written about church switching and patterns of Protestant affiliation. Contact 202-319-5999, sullins@cua.edu.

IN THE SOUTHEAST

• Max Strother is district superintendent and lead coach at the Missionary Church’s Florida District in Altamonte Springs, an evangelical organization committed to accomplishing the Great Commission through more and better churches. Contact 407-339-2532, max@mcflorida.org.
• Laurence R. Iannaccone, professor in the economics department of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., has written about measuring church growth. Contact 703-993-2331, larry@econzone.com.
• Judith R. Blau, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has written about the expansion of religion and church membership in the U.S. Contact 919-962-5603, judith_blau@unc.edu.
• The Rev. Jeunée Cunningham is the founding vicar of St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church, a church start in Leesburg, Va. She was on the steering committee for a national Episcopal “Plant My Church” conference and serves on the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia’s Commission on Church Planting. Contact 703-779-3616, pastor@saintgabriels.net.
• Professor Milton J. Coalter is the librarian at the Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va. He has written on the decline and growth prospects of mainstream Protestantism. Contact 804-355-0671, jcoalter@union-psce.edu.

IN THE SOUTH

• Tom Jones in Johnson City, Tenn., is Southeast regional director for Stadia: New Church Strategies, a parachurch organization that finds, trains, deploys and supports church planters. He serves 10 newly formed “baby churches” in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and several other states. Contact 423-722-1080.
• The Sojourn Community in Louisville, Ky., is a church plant. Senior Pastor Daniel Montgomery says Sojourn began as an attempt to reach people who were falling through the cracks in more mainstream churches. Sojourn is supported by the Kentucky Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board. Contact Montgomery, 502-767-7145, daniel@sojourncommunity.com.
• Penny Long Marler, professor of religion at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., has written about measuring growth in church attendance. Theories of religious change are among her interests. Contact 205-726-2869, plmarler@samford.edu.
• Dick Freeman is director of congregational development for North Alabama for the United Methodist Church. Contact 205-226-7956, dfreeman@northalabamaumc.org.

IN THE MIDWEST

• Daniel V. Olson, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Indiana University South Bend, has written about church growth. Contact 574-520-4235, dolson@iusb.edu.
• Professor Darren E. Sherkat, a sociologist at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, has written about religious choices of Americans, particularly baby boomers and African-Americans. His research includes inquiries into the dynamics of religious beliefs and affiliations in contemporary United States, including patterns and trends in religious mobility among white Americans. In 2001, he wrote an article, “Tracking the Restructuring of American Religion: Religious Affiliation and Patterns of Religious Belief,” in the journal Social Forces. Contact 618-453-7614, sherkat@siu.edu.
• Donald A. Luidens, professor of sociology at Hope College in Holland, Mich. (affiliated with the Reformed Church in America), has followed the evolution of denominations and denominationalism in the U.S. Contact 616-395-7554, luidens@hope.edu.
• Gary Rohrmayer, a coach and trainer of church planters in Lindenhurst, Ill., has been involved in more than 65 new church plants since 1987. He is director of church planting for the Midwest District of the Baptist General Conference. Contact 847-692-4125 or reach him through administrative assistant Phyllis Howie, phyllis@midwestbap.org.
• Rodney Harrison is assistant professor of church planting at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo. He is one of seven church planting professors in the Southern Baptist Convention’s six seminaries and is a veteran church planter, having started churches in Minnesota, California and the Dakotas. Contact 816-414-3700, rharrison@mbts.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST

• Aubrey M. Malphurs, professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century: A Comprehensive Guide for New Churches and Those Desiring Renewal (Baker Books, 2004). Contact 214-388-2389, Aubrey_Malphurs@dts.edu.
• Dewey Wells is pastor of Blossom Christian Fellowship, a church plant in San Antonio, Texas, affiliated with the Missionary Church. Contact 210-497-8770, pastorwells@satx.rr.com.
• Bruce White is the Southwestern regional director for Stadia: New Church Strategies, a parachurch organization that finds, trains, deploys and supports church planters. Although he is based in Orange County, Calif., he serves Arizona as well as Southern California and Southern Nevada. In Arizona, Stadia is supporting five church plants in various stages of maturity. Contact 714-992-5026.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST

• Bob Hyatt is lead pastor at the Evergreen Community (Motto: “Life’s short, why not apply for an extension?”) which meets in a pub in Portland, Ore., and went from 10 members in early 2004 to about 120. Evergreen believes it is important to give the “unchurched” and the “formerly churched” a place to belong before they believe. Hyatt is a megachurch escapee who says American churches that get bigger and bigger foster a culture of church consumerism and neglect individuals. One of the great attractions of planting a church, he says, is creating and sustaining a real community. Contact 503-997-0407, bob@evergreenlife.org.
• Robin D. Perrin, professor of sociology at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., wrote the article “Examining the Sources of Conservative Church Growth: Where are the New Evangelical Movements Getting Their Numbers?” for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion in 1997. Contact 310-506-4885, robin.perrin@pepperdine.edu.
• Arlene Sanchez Walsh is an associate professor of Christian ministry and urban issues at Azusa Pacific University in Azuza, Calif., where she chairs the ministry department. She is an authority on Latino evangelicals. Her books include Latino Pentecostal Identity: Evangelical Faith, Self and Society (Columbia University Press, 2003). Contact 626-815-5439, awalsh@apu.edu.
• Mark Leeper is the Sierra Pacific regional director for Stadia: New Church Strategies, a parachurch organization that finds, trains, deploys and supports church planters. He helped launch five churches in 2005 in the Northern California region that stretches from near Bakersfield to the Oregon border and from the ocean to western Nevada. He says he has more potential planters and more potential sites to plant than resources available. Contact 707-446-6232.