By Dave Jacobs who is a Church Planting Coordinator for the Western Vineyard Region

and senior pastor of the City Vineyard in San Jose, California.

According to our latest figures we (AVCUSA) planted an average of one church a week in 2002! At a time when most denominations are in decline or at a plateau, we grew by 8% last year. 53% of our church planting churches are "smaller" churches. By smaller I mean either in the 0-100 category or the 100-300 member category, totaling approximately 440 churches. Although this sounds pretty good, we need to keep it in perspective. Of our 560 churches, only 129 of them are involved in planting churches.

If we are going to start the number of churches that is both realistic and appropriate for a movement of our size there are certain obstacles that must be overcome.

My wife and I have started three churches over the past 23 years and from those churches we sent out teams to start new churches. Every time we sent out a team to plant, our church, the sending church was under or around 100 adult members. For example, six months ago we sent out a team to plant near us and at that time our adult membership was approximately 120.

Often I hear from pastors, "After we get a bit larger, then we’ll have the resources to plant." If I ask them what "a bit larger" means, they will usually say something like 200-300. Here are the facts…most of our pastors might never get to the 200-300 size. And if they do, it might take years and years. The Vineyard’s fulfillment of it’s commission by God to plant churches cannot wait that long. Small churches can plant churches! If we are going to plant the number of churches we have the potential to plant we cannot rely on the larger churches. Us "normal guys", i.e. those pasturing the smaller churches must step up to the plate and take a swing.

If you’re expecting someone from within your church to call you up out of the blue one day and say to you, "I think I’d like to start a church." good luck. It probably won’t happen like that. Most church members don’t think along those lines. You need to be on the lookout for those who might have what it takes. Worship leaders, youth leaders, successful small group leaders, department heads…basically anyone who stands out to you is a potential church planter. Of course not all of them should be or will be planters…but I bet more of them are out there than we imagine and it takes someone (the pastor) to challenge them and "call it out" of them. My current leadership team numbers about 20 adults. Of those there are three that I think have what it takes…and I’ve told them that. It’s our job as pastors to be pro-active in identifying potential church planters.

Planting new churches is costly. It will cost you money, people, leaders and delayed dreams. My church would be much larger, more financially stable and better staffed had we not planted at the end of last year. But it’s worth it! There is now a new church 15 minutes from our church that did not exist six months ago. There are 25 people attending that church that did not attend church before. This new church has more than doubled it’s size in six months! And no wonder, studies have confirmed that new churches are more effective in reaching the unchurched than are older, more established churches. Bert Waggoner keeps reminding us, "It’s about the kingdom." not just our little corner of it.

Let’s face it. Many of us are afraid of sending out a team, giving away our best people to start a new church. Believe me, I understand those fears. I still experience them. We want a growing church, a larger church. Thoughts run through our heads, "I’ll lose people, money, leaders. I’ll look smaller, insignificant. No one will invite me to speak at their conference." I’m still working at deriving my feelings of worth from my relationship to the Father and not the size of my church. Awhile back I realized that if the Lord allows me to plant the number of churches I’d like to plant in the San Jose/Central California area, and if the model I use is that of giving away a team of people to do so, I will probably stay at or around 100-200 members for the rest of my life. And you know what? I’m beginning (notice I said "beginning") to be ok with that.

If you are currently pastoring a "smaller" church, I hope this article encourages you. You can be an effective church planting church. If every church within the Vineyard under 300 members asked God to give them a plan to plant one church in the next three years, we would have about 440 new churches at the end of that time. I believe that is a realistic and appropriate goal for us. There are people out there that can help you develop such a plan, take advantage of those people. Small churches can plant churches.