A few years ago, Ed Stetzer and I co-wrote a resource to catalyze movemental church planting. It’s called “1,000 Churches: How Past Movements Did It—And How Your Church Can, Too.” Over the next few weeks, I will re-post a chapter at a time. The following is Chapter 2: Why There’s No Church Planting Movement in the West.

It’s unlikely there will be a Church Planting Movement in the West. However, we’re still working toward something that is movemental. Let us explain. Again, there are 34 Western industrialized democracies in the world; countries like the U.S., Germany, Canada, and so forth. Among those Western industrialized democracies there is no such thing as a Church Planting Movement, as defined by David Garrison.

You say, “But Ed and Daniel, I read in David Garrison’s book that there were Church Planting Movements, and he named several of them in North America.” He did. We talked and don’t think he would say that now. Garrison has since revised his claim that there were Church Planting Movements in North America. We (Ed) actually wrote a paper together that became a chapter in Viral Churches, which laid out this reality among majority peoples. Yes, there are hundreds of missionaries who have been influenced by the Church Planting Movement methodology and who are trying to engage majority world peoples in Western industrialized democracies. Yet none of them have been able to see a movement thus far, which is why I think we may be setting an unattainable goal.

Now, don’t misunderstand. God can do it. We are praying for it. We should keep working toward it. But, we also need to know that there are movements that have happened in our lifetimes but not like what we’ve seen (also in our lifetime) in the non-Western world (think Asia, in particular).

Undermining Church Planting Movements

There are some Church Planting Movements in Western industrialized, or semi-industrialized, non- democracies. Those movements are in Cuba, where downward government pressure prohibits churches from building buildings, forcing them to meet in homes. Once the homes started multiplying, they got a Church Planting Movement.

Church Planting Movements are also found in Shanghai, which is a non-Western industrialized society. The fact is, Church Planting Movements exist around the world, just not here in the Western industrialized world. Here’s one reason why: anthropology is an evolutionary process that leads to a societal structure. This structure sustains certain expressions and does not sustain others. For example, we live in a post-labor segmented society. In other words, if my car breaks down, then I’m going to go to my mechanic. If I have legal problems, then I’m going to go to my lawyer. If I need accounting help, then I go to my accountant. And if I need religious help, then I go to a religious professional or someone who has written something on that topic.

There are two expectations that now pervade our society: a professionalization expectation and a segmentation one. These expectations undermine the Church Planting Movement methodology that David Garrison has written about and that we desire to see here and around the world.

We are not saying these are all good things, but they are real—and really powerful.

Let’s say you go to an island or valley in Papua New Guinea. There, all the men wake up in the morning and go out to gather durian fruit. Or perhaps some go hunting, while the women stay home and care for the children and the village. Now, let’s say a missionary came and preached the gospel in that village, a revival broke out, and half the village came to know Jesus.

At this point, the missionary translates the Bible into their language, and as the people begin to read their Bible, they see that in 1 Timothy 3 it talks about pastors. So they decide that they need a pastor. Well, who should be their pastor? Since all of them do the same thing, they decide that the godliest person should be their pastor—and they pick the godliest person, a 50-year-old man who they’ve seen transformed by the gospel. Now what happens? What should the godliest person, who is now the pastor, do? It’s simple. He should do what he’s always done: continue to gather durian fruit.

In this model, his vocation hasn’t changed. There really is no way for his vocation to change. There is no pathway for changed vocation in that culture. So this creates a remarkably easy, reproducible leadership pattern where you can then go to the neighboring valley, share the gospel, and empower the godliest person to become the pastor. Then, the other godliest person becomes the missionary and visits the neighboring village and goes and spreads the gospel there. By default, the cultural environment is positioned for movement.

You can go throughout the entire region planting churches without any hindrance because all you need is the gospel, someone who is godly that meets the qualifications for a pastor, and the leading and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. It just multiplies from there. There’s no labor segmentation in Papua New Guinea amongst the people who gather durian. Everybody does the same thing. No one has to read or not read. No one has to have education or not have education.

Yet, if you are reading this, you probably live in a world where all that has changed. When people have the economic ability and the religious liberty to do so, they now gather in increasingly larger groups under more professional or gifted leadership. That’s why churches are getting larger, not smaller. Now I know there are all kinds of exceptions, but the exceptions are that: exceptions.

The Research Journey

Viral Churches was based on a research project funded through Leadership Network. The sponsor wanted to know what was really going on with church planting in North America. So Dave Travis, who was the CEO at Leadership Network at the time, connected us with one another and I (Ed) was commissioned to figure it out. We read every book and dissertation on church planting in the English language published since 1954. We covered everything. We looked at all denominations. We then took the positive findings that we discovered from that report and wrote Viral Churches to provoke the church to love and good deeds.

In the research, we discovered that we were not able to validate all of the claims to Church Planting Movements in the West. At the time, I (Ed) was actually the missiologist at one of the largest domestic mission agencies in North America.

While I was doing the research, I was told that there was a Church Planting Movement in Colorado. So I got on a plane, went to Colorado, and met with the people in the supposed Church Planting Movement. While talking to them, they said, “Yes, there are some God things that are being done here, but we don’t have a Church Planting Movement. You really have to go to Austin, though. That’s where you’ll definitely see a Church Planting Movement.”

So I went to Austin. When I was there, I met with them and they said, “Things are going really great here, but by no means do we have a Church Planting Movement. You have to check out Rhode Island though. That’s where you’ll definitely see a Church Planting Movement.”

I contacted the people in Rhode Island. And they said the same thing, “There’s no Church Planting Movement going on here, but there is one in Long Beach. You should check them out.” Then I went to Long Beach and they said, “No we’re not a Church Planting Movement yet, but we want to be and we’re trying to be.”

You get the point.

People kept referring to other places with talk of legendary movements.

I felt like I was on the search for the Holy Grail. And perhaps that’s what Church Planting Movements are kind of like. No one has personally seen them, but they know somebody who claims to have seen them, and it’s just a few villages over.

What Now?

So, we could not find a Church Planting Movement among the majority of peoples within the 34 Western industrialized democracies. And making people run after things they can never achieve can be demoralizing. Now you might say, “Ed and Daniel, God in His sovereignty can make it happen.” Yes, we know that, but we also know that God in His sovereignty works within the cultural containers that are human existence and relationships.

On the other hand, we have seen Church Multiplication Movements in our lifetime. As Warren Bird and I (Ed) described in Viral Churches, these are “a rapid reproduction of churches planting churches, measured by a reproduction rate of 50 percent through the third generation of churches, with new churches having 50 percent new converts.” We’ve seen this multiplication with Calvary Chapel in the late 70s and 80s. We’ve seen this multiplication also with the Vineyard in the 80s and into the 90s. This multiplication has happened with Pentecostalism in seasons in the 1900s. The Baptists and Methodists experienced this as well from 1795 through the early 1800s. But right now, there is no Church Multiplication Movement happening here in the West. We think it’s attainable (since many of us have seen it in our lifetimes), but it’s just not happening at the moment.

If God wants to do a Church Planting Movement in the West and prove the research wrong, we will say to the Lord Jesus Christ, “Amen, and we’re excited!” But until that time, we need to call the Church to move from an addition mindset to a reproduction one so that churches will commit to planting churches that will plant churches that will plant churches to the third generation. We think at the third generation you can call something a movement.

Next week, we’ll unpack the characteristics of movements.