Texas District

From the very foundation of the LCMC Texas District, we have felt compelled by the Great Commission to prioritize church planting. When congregations gathered together to form this association, we recognized our need to help and encourage one another in evangelism and discipleship. It was clear that if our congregations were going to make a kingdom impact here in Texas, we needed to get serious about church planting.

 

As we come upon our 10th Annual Gathering July 27-28th in New Braunfels, it is time to pause and reflect and renew our zeal for our intended purposes. As we pause and reflect, I thought I’d share a few lessons I’ve learned about church planting movements to help us advance the Kingdom of God through church planting:

1. LCMC Texas does not have a church planting movement … yet. Movements are best defined by the attention and intention of an influential number of people. We have begun to shift greater attention towards planting churches, but most pastors, church leaders and congregation members see church planting as something that someone else does. We will not have a church planting movement in LCMC Texas without the attention and intention of an influential number of people becoming engaged in the pursuit of planting churches.

 

2. The most effective model for planting churches is parenting: a healthy congregation giving birth to a new church. Unfortunately for most of us who came out of another denomination, church planting was not something that congregations directly participated in and therefore it is often not on the agenda of our pastors, church leaders and congregations for consideration. But in LCMC, we affirm that the local congregation is the front lines of mission and ministry and we need to re-engage the local congregation in directly participating in church planting efforts.

 

3. Getting involved is not as daunting as one might think. Did you know that congregations of less than 200 a week in worship attendance are statistically more likely to plant a church than a congregation with more than 600 a week in worship? Often times people do not get involved simply because they don’t know what to do or how to do it … or they assume its for someone else to do. But God is calling each of us to participate in planting churches and you can help, too! Feel free to contact me and let’s talk about what you can do to advance the Kingdom and begin to build a church planting movement among Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ in Texas.

 

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