Service Powered Planters
Article Excerpt from Compassion Planting in Enrichment Journal by David Mills
A growing number of church planters are making community service a central focus of their churches. The philosophy behind this ranges from those who launch their church at the culmination of multiple service projects, to others who will not start formal planting activity until they have completed 6 months of service in their community. As they grow, their first hire will not be a youth, music, or administrative person. Rather, it might be a community coordinator. These churches will do more than random service events with a marketing focus; they will establish leadership and evangelism around community-serving activities that will shape the DNA of their congregation.
People identify this emerging trend by several names: compassion-based planting; incarnational or missional; externally focused; community based; or compassion by design. No matter the label, these churches are growing with a new kind of service-powered character that results in greater access to community networks and relationships prior to launch. They use missional discipleship to bridge the credibility gap with populations who are skeptical toward the church and the gospel. While their power does not come from service, serving positions their congregation as an instrument through which power then moves to transform lives.
These churches align their experience with Jesus’ teaching about Kingdom greatness through service (Matthew 20:26). These new church leaders view their role in the community in light of Jesus’ teaching about active social involvement (Luke 10:30–37; John 2:1–11), but do not view their social involvement as a replacement for the gospel. Service-powered planters instinctively realize how resistant our culture is becoming to the gospel.They view community service as a way to change how people perceive the church and to build relationships that open the door for life transformation. Research on the emerging generations makes it clear that service to others is not an option if we are to be credible with people under 30.1 Service-powered planters build service into the timeline and rhythm of church life from day one. Rusty, a church planter, writes, “We have included community service from the beginning of our church plant. At The Crossing we believe [that] community service is a direct result of a life changed by Christ.” Ron, an independent Christian church planter, puts it this way, “Providing people a church service breeds complacency. Providing people opportunity for community service breeds life change.”
According to Andy, an Assemblies of God church planter,
“Service in the community is not only opening doors for new relationships; it is creating a sense of ‘sent-ness,’ — a missional DNA in the fabric of this new church and my whole team.”
This except published by Permission of Enrichment Journal, the rest of the article is available here.