Church planting is near-and-dear to my heart, having been a part of one that flourished and made an eternal difference in the lives of many. However, there are some who oppose church planting altogether in fear that church plants are simply attempts to further disintegrate the Church into thousands of little pieces. In other cases, some are afraid that plants are trying to take all of the members of small churches and integrate them into one big church that doesn't address their needs. These concerns are often genuine, and sometimes accurate, but I believe that J.D. Payne's Apostolic Church Planting produces a methodology of church planting that would assuage these concerns if applied.
Your team is not called to plant a church, but to make disciples who will bear fruit through a local expression of the body of Christ.
Payne's book on church planting is different from its foundation because it does not have as its objective planting a "church," per se. Payne's model is much more focused on discipling those who are unchurched until they recognize their need for a place to gather as an official church. He bases this off of the Pauline church planting narratives, wherein Paul travelled from city to city inviting non-believers to become Christians before spending some time discipling them and teaching them "the whole counsel of God." It was only after their self-identification as a church that they became what most would recognize as a church today.
This is exactly Payne's point. Most of the hesitance towards church planting (and the animosity towards it by established churches and their members) springs from the fact that planters often plant a church and then expect to fill it with members. To be fair, this is the corporate model. When a new box-store or other corporation moves into your city, they don't begin by having a mobile unit sell their goods in the area for awhile in order to assess whether that community would buy their goods. One day they are not there, and the next day they are. If nobody buys their goods, they close back down. With Payne's Pauline Method (my term not his), he does not require up-front start-up money to lease a building, or gain legal recognition. Rather, the church planting team moves into an area to make disciples without any construction, any footprint, or any publicity.
Faithfulness without a strategy is foolishness.
This is not to say that the method admonished is one without preparation or planning. On the contrary, Payne forwards a "Church Multiplication Cycle" that is formulated to allow the church planting team to "phase out" of the church plant itself. Rather than establishing a church that one intends to pastor (often called the parachute method), this method could be called an insurgent method. Get in - accomplish the mission - get out.
It works with a group of planters beginning by identifying an area that has an "unreached and unengaged" people group. This is defined by Payne as being a group that is less than 2% evangelical, and without any intentional evangelization. This does not strictly mean a people in the jungles of Peru or off on some island in the Pacific. Rather, this could be Kurdish Muslims living in Nashville, TN., or Vietnamese Buddhists in Birmingham, AL.
These groups, like those around the world, will often have to be reached by learning about their cultures and languages to bridge the gaps. This all occurs before ever moving to the area. Once the church plant team has moved to the area, then they identify places that are ideal for evangelism - local frequents such as city parks, malls, etc. In some regions, these areas will serve evangelists better than door-to-door ministry.
I particularly liked the method that Payne recommends for engaging these people, as it is direct and open. Rather than "smuggling Jesus" into the conversation (my term, not his), Payne recommends starting by identifying yourself as a follower of Jesus very early in the conversation before asking if the person would be comfortable with you praying for them. If they are, he recommends asking if they would be open to having someone come to their house to teach them about the Bible.
Church planting is not about attracting a crowd or launching a worship service; rather, it is about the advancement of the kingdom as unbelievers become followers of the living God through local expressions of the body of Christ.
Without going point-for-point (as I hope you will buy the book and read it yourself), Payne has a thorough method for advancing those who are open to the Gospel through a discipleship period before actually establishing anything on a brick-and-mortar basis. After they identify the need to gather corporately, then the church can ordain elders and begin the "extraction process" (again, my term, not his).
Payne has taken great care to avoid paternalism, as well as the thief mentality that is often applied to church planters by making clear that his method is not one intended on changing other cultures or stealing what he calls "transfer members." Instead, Payne wants to insert the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the vacuum that is open in many unreached and unengaged groups around the world.
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