Planting Churches that Plant Churches...like a virus, through Western Europe!
Why? Harvest. Matt 28 / Acts 1:8
Who? R.E.A.L. Our job is to find & Release European Apostolic Leaders.
DNA & Values? S.M.A.R.T. If we loose one of these we loose the heart of what we are doing. Supernatural, Multiplication, Apostolic leadership, Reaching the lost, Training & development.
Did you know 88,000 people per year leave the church in Holland. That's 1600 per week!! Two churches close their doors every week in the Netherlands. In 2009 52,000 people left protestant churches in Holland. The % of Christians by the way is higher than most other Western European Countries. (From the Dutch book "The Church is dead - long live the King". by Otto De Bruijne & En Stijn Postema).
In Western Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark), = 332 million people. If there is an average of 3% Evangelical Christian = 10 million Christians, (which I think is high). That leaves 322 million lost...a Christ-less eternity awaits - hell!! Something must be done! Some countries such as Belgium, France & Denmark have only .05 - 1% Evangelical Christians!!
David Womack, "There is only ONE way the Great Commission can be fulfilled, & that is by establishing Gospel preaching congregations in every community on the face of the earth".
C.P.Wagner, in his book "Spreading the Fire, pg 60", says, "The most concrete, lasting form of ministry in Acts is church planting..." In his book, "Blazing the way, pg 48", he says, "No missiological principle is more important than saturation church planting."
Dr Ralph Winter states, "The extensive activity of starting new congregations, the care & feeding of new congregations is thus the central activity to which ALL evangelistic methods must be bent."
Rick Warren, "The BEST way to fulfill the Great Commission that Jesus gave to us, is to plant new churches..."
Tim Keller, say's in (Viral Churches, by Stetzer & Bird, pg 72), "If we want to increase the % of Christians in a village, city or Nation, we must plant hundreds of churches". In fact he goes on to say, "New church planting is the ONLY way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city & it's one of the best ways to renew the whole Body of Christ."
Stetzer & Bird in their book, Viral Churches say, "The early church implemented the Great Commission mandate primarily by planting new churches."
C.P.Wagner, sums it all up with his famous quote, "The BEST (my insert - long term) evangelistic method under Heaven is church planting".
An African proverb says, "There is a crime in the desert worse than murder, that is to KNOW where the WATER IS and NOT tell anybody".
If not YOU...WHO?
If not NOW...WHEN?
If not HERE...WHERE?
If indeed the above statements are correct & true, I encourage you to partner in some way with a church planting ministry. Your missions dollar will not be wasted & it will bear fruit for many generations to come!
