» Highland view

Here’s a case study of a church planting movement. Thanks to Graeme who’s done a great job of distilling the learning for us all.

Insights from a Church Planting Movement in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Winding through the mountains of Simbu Province in my 4WD with a group of local pastors and the district director, we passed what appeared to be a church. When I asked these church leaders if they knew about this church, not one of them had any knowledge of its existence, not even the pastor who cared for the area. I suggested we back up and go pay a visit. There were no church sign boards, just a simple bush material church in a clearing in the middle of a coffee plantation.

We met the owner of the land, who introduced himself as a graduate from the lay training school. He had recently returned home with a passion to plant a church in his own village. He had cleared a patch in his own plantation and together with his family, built his church. People from his village began to attend, and thus a new church sprang up, unknown to the denomination and even the local pastor. Similar stories have been recounted many times in various places throughout PNG and are a testimony to the passionate men and women who gave of themselves to plant churches for Jesus Christ in unentered areas.

The following observations are insights I gained from being involved in a church planting movement in Papua New Guinea. They arise from 8 years of ministry in PNG, four of them in the Eastern Highlands-Simbu region where our denomination grew from an estimated 2-300 hundred churches to approx 600 churches within 5 years. (25,656 members in 1985 to 40,595 in 1989). Apart from the moving of the Holy Spirit, there are some human influences which I believe assisted the church planting movement:

1. Structure
It is important to provide a structure that is conducive to growth and that actively encourages the planting of churches. This impacts all areas of operation, and includes staffing, budgets, policies and ongoing support.

2. Strategy
The practice of setting goals brought focus and direction to our church planting movement. The denomination planned a nationwide strategy which included slogans such as “Grow One – Grow a Church and Reap a Harvest,” “Each Church to Grow a Church,” “Target 600,” “Harvest 90.”

3. Mobilization
When ordinary members of the church catch the vision to plant churches, it is not only vital to continue to motivate these potential church planters, it is just as vital to provide them with leadership development and training. The denomination provided a six-week lay training school which enabled and then released graduates with the challenge to multiply churches.

4. Control
When a church planting movement “takes off” or a bevy of church planters is released, the denomination cannot control the multiplication of churches. I learned the principle of “holding loosely” as opposed to micro-management. “Holding loosely” encourages local ownership of the church plant together with the development of local leadership skills. Decision making needs to be as decentralised as possible.

5. Finance
A church planting movement strains denominational budgets and helps it to focus on priorities. However, we observed that the explosion of church plants was not dependent on funding from the mission. Nominal funding from the mission assisted some church plants, but many were self sufficient. Mission budgets were strained when attempting to provide adequate regular pastoral care to the burgeoning church plants throughout the mission.

6. Church planters
Candidates for church planting can be the most unlikely of people and come from either lay or pastoral backgrounds. It appeared that the majority of church plants were initiated by laity. The factor that seemed to be more important than any other was the passion of the church planter in sharing his faith and raising a community of believers – in short planting a church.

© Graeme Humble

If you have a good case study of a church plant or church planting movement. Send it in. My email address is on the bio page. No more than two sides of an A4/US Letter.