Too Many Churches?

Last weekend I went public with the news that we are heading to Durham to launch The CityWell. The response in our community and among friends around the country has been very encouraging, but amid the well-wishes and affirmation has been a question voiced by several people, "Don't we already have too many churches? Why one more?"

Well, I think we can respond to that question in a number of ways, but we must start with the heart of the matter; namely, church planting flows from the heart of God. Allow me to explain. God is perfect community, Father, Son and Holy Spirit eternally existing in complete self-giving, other-exalting and ultimately loving union. This is why the Bible can say, "God is love." Add to this that we are created in the image of this communal God and we start to understand why all of us so long for relational connectedness. Going a step further, the scripture clearly displays God as one who calls forth communities to participate in God's life and to bear witness to the world regarding God's beauty, goodness, power and purpose for creation. We see this with God's call of Israel to be a holy people and a royal priesthood. We see it in Jesus' calling together a community of disciples and then in His sending those disciples out to call forth new communities to partner in God's purposes. Throughout the book of Acts we find the emergence of new faith communities wherever the Gospel was proclaimed and received. Intriguingly, the narrative of Acts ends abruptly and seems to remain unfinished, as if to suggest that the mission of spreading the Gospel through the formation of new churches is not complete. The Church is called ever forward to establish new communities of faith who will live forth, and invite the nations to participate in, the Reign of God. So the short expression of this heart-of-God purpose is this: God is perfect community and always calls forth new worship communities; we are made in God's image to do the same thing. 

Here are a few more reasons (briefly stated):

• New churches see 3-4 times more people per attendee come to faith in Christ than do older churches.
  
• Churches that remain committed to birthing new congregations retain their external focus and evangelistic effectiveness far more than churches that exist only unto themselves. Church plants bring vitality to "parent" churches.
  
• As cultures change (and ours is in a decades-long whirlwind of change), new churches innovate ways of articulating the unchanging good news of Jesus in new and relevant ways.
  
• New churches are incubators for new leaders to raise up and discover their Kingdom calling and gifting.       

All this to say, in a context where only 17.5% of our population has any meaningful connection with a Christian church, I don't think we are anywhere close to having too many churches.

What do you think?