Planting Space

contributed by Doug Foltz

In chapter 10 of Planting Missional Churches, Dr. Ed Stetzer talks about church planting in emerging culture. In this chapter Dr. Stetzer writes that we can’t expect people to come to us in a search for truth. Instead, we must go to them. Well yeah, nothing earth shattering about rephrasing the Great Commission. But are we doing it? Is this head knowledge making its way into action?

In my last post, I spoke about how in emerging culture truth is defined by community not be universally accepted truths. If this is true (and it is), then we must be intentional about the “go” part of the Great Commission. Ask yourself, where do people live, eat and play? How can I live, eat and play in those places in such a way that I intersect their lives rather running parallel alongside it?

In church planting, we often do lots of marketing as way to get the word out that a new church is in town. In an emergent culture, marketing alone becomes nothing more than more noise in an already noisy environment. But combine marketing with relationship and all of a sudden the noise starts to sound like truth.

In case you need the reminder:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

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