Global Church Planting Chapter Summary

In chapter four of Global Church Planting, the authors talk about the expansion of Kingdom communities as learned from the New Testament. They talk about the importance of church reproduction and how to do it in a healthy way. Indigeneity and church planting movements are critical parts to church multiplication. This chapter describes the importance of local churches training local leaders to again reproduce and train those churches as well to reproduce. “The missionary effort to establish indigenous churches is an effort to plant churches that fit naturally into their environment and to avoid planting churches that replicate western patterns.” – John Mark Terry

As the authors state, the term “church planting movement” is not found directly

Throughout this chapter, and the entire book, it is restated how important it is to keep the church local and not be hindered by making it fall in only western patterns. This is important for missionaries reaching foreign fields and planting churches. These new churches are supposed to be “God’s bridges” in reaching out to their own people. Pushing a church to adopt foreign traditions and ideas can hinder the multiplication process. It is important for them to rely on local source and not outside resources. The church should also be built on the skills and abilities of the local believers. Using their own culture and people will help produce a church self-reliant and empower the believers and people of the church.

When starting a church it is important to remember to teach in a way the people of that specific culture will understand and be able to reproduce. “A rule of thumb is, if you can’t teach local leaders to do it, and they couldn’t teach others to do it, you probably shouldn’t do it.” (Global Church Planting: Craig Ott & Gene Wilson) The new local believers are supposed to become the next evangelists. They need to be taught in a way that can easily be reproduced and practiced in that