A few years ago, God gave The Summit Church a vision of planting 1,000 churches by the year 2050. When we first verbalized that number, a lot of people thought it was a crazy idea, far too audacious. But we’ve seen God move in powerful ways since then. We have had the privilege of sending out 238 people to plant 23 separate churches in North America, some of which are already planting other churches. Those numbers overwhelm me as a testimony to God’s power.
Most people I talk to today, though, still think it’s a crazy idea. Honestly, there are times when I think it’s a bit too audacious. But then I remember what Matthew wrote in his gospel: “And Jesus did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith” (Matt 13:58).
Doesn’t this verse imply that he would have done those miracles—indeed, wanted to do them—but there was simply no one there who believed in his willingness and ability? What if the lack of divine activity in our community had nothing to do with “deficiencies” in God’s compassion, only deficiencies in our belief in his willingness?
I never want this to be said of our church. Call our vision of “1,000 churches in one generation” audacious; I call it taking Matthew 13:58 seriously.
Planting 1,000 churches, however, is just one of our God-sized visions. We also want to equip dozens of other churches to get in on the action, to catalyze churches in their church planting efforts, both here in Raleigh-Durham and around the country. The gospel is too important to spend time in petty territorialism. Even if we hit our mark of 1,000 churches, that only touches a fraction of the people in this nation. This is about people finding Jesus, and the Summit is just one drop in that bucket.
The more we focus on church planting, the more we have come to realize that while there are a lot of quality training opportunities for individual church planters, there are not nearly as many for churches that want to improve their church planting programs. Because we believe that the church is God’s “Plan A” for completing the Great Commission, we want to leverage what we’ve learned for the benefit of other churches. And we want to continue sharpening our strategy in light of what other gospel-centered churches are doing.
In light of our desire to partner with other churches, I’m excited about our upcoming Church Planting Workshops, equipping sessions that we’ll be hosting starting October 1. If your church is even thinking about church planting, you’ll benefit from these workshops—if only to learn from the numerous mistakes and mishaps we’ve stumbled through over the years! In addition to hearing how not to go about church planting, participants will get an in-depth look at some of the philosophy and strategy necessary to improve their church planting programs—or to plant their very first church.
If your church would benefit from a workshop, we’d love to connect with you. Information regarding dates, cost, and registration can be found here. We’d love to serve and learn from you as we partner together to reach our generation for Christ.
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