Church Planting

"If 'church' is what happens when people encounter the Risen Jesus and commit themselves to sustaining and deepening that encounter in their encounter with each other, there is plenty of theological room for diversity of rhythm and style, so long as we have ways of identifying the same living Christ at the heart of every expression of Christian life in common." Archbishop Rowan Williams.

YWAM
Starting Fresh Expressions of Church for a New Generation

Some General Church Planting Information

 * Why Plant Churches, a paper by Timothy Keller - a very good answer on anyone should plant churches at all, particularly for those from traditional churches.
 * Church Planting is not for me - a great blog article explaining why churches should be planted even when there seems to be many existing churches that they would compete with.

YWAM's approach to church planting

 * Ten Reasons Why YWAM Plants Churches:Floyd's explanation of Church planting following the 1988 decision to use church planting as a means for evangelism.
 * Guiding Principles for Planting Churches.
 * Every YWAMer can plant a church.
 * YWAM's church planting coaching site (Including some great resources free to download.
 * Church planting is a well established method for evangelising in Frontier Missions and is generally taught on the School of Frontier Missions. In particular Simple Church and Church Planting Movements. (CPC resource) are emphasised.

Declarations by YWAM about church planting

 * Manila Covenant - "... We affirm the importance of the local church. We humbly ask God for His grace and help to enable us to multiply and build up local churches and to work as partners with them for the fulfillment of the Great Commission...". Shows the balance between supporting, partnering and multiplying the local church.
 * YWAM Europe's commitment to Church Planting - a more specific European declaration.
 * Vancouver Declaration - a recent North American declaration.

Wikipedia on church planting

 * Church Planting.
 * Simple church.
 * House church.
 * Cell church.
 * Emerging church and see this discussion from WELC08.
 * Pub Church.

Other interesting articles

 * One very exciting initiative in the UK: Fresh Expressions, new forms of church (http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk).
 * Mission With An Anabaptist Twist: Some considerations of urban missions from Urban Church Planting Conference.
 * The Mission Agency and the Local Church. A thesis for a theology degree by one YWAMer who is exploring the tension between the role of the missions agency and the local church.