INVESTING IN THE KINGDOM
Within Whiteinch Church of Scotland we are convinced that,

“Church planting is the most effective means of evangelism under the sun”
(C. Peter Wagner)

We believe that to reach the vast majority of those who live in our community, our city and our nation we need a new breed of Church – a Church which holds passionately to the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ while finding new ways of expressing that message in new faith communities.

We are encouraged in this view as we read the many ways in which the Holy Spirit led Jesus’ friends to create and establish culturally appropriate, missionary congregations. We are optimistic as we survey the emergence of a whole range of new initiatives within the wider Church.

In Scotland, and further afield, Christians today are trying to rediscover how to apply that sharp missionary focus in a way which is appropriate to contemporary culture.

We believe God has called us to be a Church Planting Church. We already play a small part in what is going on, but believe God is calling us to a fuller involvement in this great adventure. In 1992, as part of the Decade of Evangelism, the Disciple A Whole N ation (DAWN) Congress, made up of all the major Christian denominations within the UK, set the target of planting 20,000 new Churches within the following ten years.

By 1994 C. Peter Wagner had already identified that the
target would never be met.

Why? Because to plant 20,000 Churches would require 50,000 leaders to be trained, ready and released. No such leadership training agenda was in place, never mind the actual selection, training and deployment programmes.

By 2002 there were only a few hundred new Churches planted – largely due to lack of trained leaders.

God is raising up many people from throughout the whole Church with a passion for creating church in new ways, whether they call them “church plants”, “fresh expressions” “emerging churches”, “network churches” or simply aim to create space for people to have access to the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Invest aims to be a pathway towards participation in Church Planting leadership. What these churches will look like, we do not know – they may be independent fellowships or a congregation associated with an existing church. We certainly hope to develop a network for support and encouragement.

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