Cookie's days: Church planting far and wide

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Here is a film of the hopeful and inspiring story of church planting that's happened down the years through HTB.

Anonymous said...: Is HTB just empire building? Is it stopping decline of people attending church? Are more people than ever being saved for Christ through planting?; 6:50 PM
David Cooke said...: Thanks for the thoughts

1: I don't think so. It is costly to give people and resources away and they have always been generous. I prefer the term Kingdom building which I do witness they are doing. 2. London is showing the most growth of any Diocese in the C of E so relative to the rest of the nation HTB seems to be having an impact on overall church attendance. St Peter's is positively impacting the whole of Brighton and I don't think their growth is all from transfer. A pal is planting out onto an estate in the coming months which if this plant had not happened would not have been possible. We should I hope be encouraged 3. The evidence (often cited by Tim Keller and others) is that newer churches are more effective at reaching the lost than established ones.

'Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10-15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other congregations'

....cited in this paper

http://download.redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/Why_Plant_Churches-Keller.pdf; 10:33 AM