Church Planters’ Challenger #1

Helping to establish multiplying communities of disciples among every unreached people group

Introduction to ….

Our Purpose

We want to help you to be the most effective that you can be in establishing churches among your people. We long to see the remaining 10,000 unreached peoples reached with the gospel. We look forward to seeing a church planting movement in your people group.

Who are we?

Our names are Richard and Evelyn Hibbert.

We have been working in Turkey (for 3 years) and Bulgaria (for 9 years). We have been church planters among the folk Muslim, Turkish Gyspies of Bulgaria, and by God’s grace have seen a church established in an unreached Muslim area of the country. We have spent most of the last 9 years in church planting, training leaders for the 100 or so new Turkish Gypsy churches in eastern Bulgaria, and coaching two church planting teams.

We left Bulgaria four months ago, realizing that God was calling us to help others become the best they can be. We have been asked to take up the role of International Directors for Equipping and Advance, a new role which has some overlap with Patrick and Robyn Johnstone’s role. Our heart’s desire is to help you to become the most effective you can be.

How can we help you?

Church planters working among the remaining unreached peoples of the world work under difficult circumstances. The task of planting churches and working towards a movement of multiplying churches is a huge challenge. During our time in Turkey and Bulgaria, we often really wanted input from others who had some experience or ideas, but it was often not available.

The idea of this forum is to stimulate thought and evaluation of how we are doing church planting in our various contexts. We would like to see a cross-fertilization of ideas as you respond to the questions posed in each issue. If you would like to respond to something in one of the 'Challengers' write to us at idea@iroteam.com. A selection of your responses and comments, the things you have learnt from your experience will be posted in future issues. At times you will have questions you want answers to. We will do our best to answer these, and put some of them into future issues.

We plan to send out a 'Church Planters’ Challenger' every one to two months.

What are you aiming for?

One of the key questions we need to answer in church planting is, "What are we aiming for?"

Try these exercises in stimulating vision:
    1. Write a 29th chapter for the book of Acts for your people group. Be creative. Think big. What does God want to see happen? If you are part of a church planting team, you could each do this individually and then share what you have written with the rest of the team.
    2. Ask yourself this question and meditate on it: "If God poured His blessing on my life and ministry, what would the result look like in my people group in 20 years?" Can you draw a picture of what it would/could look like?

Part of this question of vision is this: Are we looking for only one church to be planted, or a movement of multiplying churches? If your vision is a movement of multiplying churches, then your approach may be different than if you are aiming to plant only one church. Have you seen the booklet on church planting movements? I believe this is a very important resource that every church planter can benefit greatly from. Be prepared for your vision and your heart to be stretched! You can view and save the booklet by going to www.imb.org/cpm or you could get a hard copy by ordering one from www.imb.org/resources or you can request one by email from resource.center@imb.org.

Another aspect of this question is: What is a church? We need to be clear about what we are planting before we allow it to take root. When Jesus said, ". . . I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it," (Mt. 16:18) what did He have in mind?

Try this exercise to sharpen your understanding of what a church is:

Read each of the following passages, and write a few sentences or notes on the way the church is described in each one. Then write a summary paragraph at the end to describe what a church is. Feel free to add other passages if you want. Doing this as a group or team can be even more interesting.

Mt.16:16-19; Mt. 18:15-17; Acts 2:41-47; Acts 4:32-35; Rom.12:4-8; 1Cor. 14:26 Efes.1:22 Eph. 4:11-16; Eph. 5:18-19; 1Pet. 4:10-11; Heb.10:24-25; Jas. 5:13-16

Most of the cases of rapid church multiplication over the last 15 years the churches have been small groups which meet in homes or at least based on household networks. This seems to be the kind of church described in Acts.

Here are some useful resources on the theme of the house church and its importance:

Banks, Robert. Paul’s idea of community

Simson, Wolfgang. 1998. Houses that change the world: The return of the house churches. Carlisle: OM Publishing.

(Both these books are available from www.koorong.com.au as well as some other Christian bookshops on the net)

Julien, Tom. 1998. The essence of the church. Evangelical Missions Quarterly 34 You can read and save this at www.wheaton.edu/bgc/emis and go to the link for EMQ archives, then go to E (for essence).

Your response

We would love to hear from you and start some cross-fertilization of ideas and resources. What are you aiming for? What questions or problems do you face as you try to answer this question?

Looking forward to your responses

God bless you as you continue to do the most important job in the world.

Richard Hibbert