Faith for Church Planting

Recently on the podcast, Ben and I talked about 1 Corinthians 3: 5-9 with truths that can stir our faith for church planting. Here are some excerpts from the transcript, with the full podcast linked below.

Paul writes in verse 5, "What then is Apollos, what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God gives the growth. He who plants, he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field and God's building."

So just a couple of thoughts; one, in the text he says twice, that it is God that gives the growth. And, we have to have a component of faith to our church planting. That we believe our God will give the growth when we plant churches. And, when we talk about church planting there’s lot about methodology and that's really good and really helpful. So we should study those things and even put some of those methods into practice because we want to plant strong churches, but we also want to believe that God will give the growth.

Second, we are called God's fellow workers. That's stunning to me. That God would involve us in the work of his mission, but then to be called fellow workers with God, is amazing. And so when we church plant, we are laboring with God in his field, planting and watering, knowing that he will give the growth. And so church planting is a privilege because we are laboring with God. We are fellow workers with God. So, just a couple of thoughts from a text that I hope stirs us to think about church planting more and pray about church planting, and the Lord may just lead you to plant a church in the coming year or two, believing that he will give the growth.