Church Planting Movements

In his short but powerful book called Church Planting Movements, David Garrison defined a Church Planting Movement (CPM) this way: "a rapid and multiplicative increase of indigenous churches planting churches within a given people group or population segment." Its with that ethos that, in light of the early church, we'll explore the feasibility of this type of movement today ... here in Tucson.

When we think of what it'd take to impact Tucson with the Good News of the Kingdom of God we know that its time to starting "coloring outside the lines." Einstein said it well when he commented, "the kind of thinking that will solve the world's problems will be of a different order to the kind of thinking that created them in the first place." The fact that 930,000 out of 1,000,000 Tucsonans are unchurched leads us to believe that we need some new thinking. Our current strategies and plans got us 7% of the population, but we want to see all know God.  We cannot afford to think narrowly along the line of addition, but instead rapid multiplication in the arena of church planting.

In his most recent book The Forgotten Ways, Australian writer Alan Hirsch points out that in the U.S. 95% of "contemporary" evangelical churches are all vying for the same 35% "market-share" of people out there who'd somewhat be inclined to that "mode" of church. These are your run-of-the-mill white middle-class vanilla flavored churches targeting this profile ... "Demographically speaking, they (evangelical churches) tend to cater largely to what might be called the 'family-values-segment' - good, solid, well-educated citizens who don't abuse their kids, who pay their taxes, and who live, largely, what can be called a suburban lifestyle" (35)

Here's what we mean, over 65% of our American population don't even resonate with the way we even "do church." This 65% population segment is interested in God / spiritual things ... they're just not interested in our spectator approach to church compared to the dangerously explosive missional-incarnational ethos in the early church. "And yet it seems that when faced with our problems of decline, we automatically reach for the latest church growth package to solve the problem - we seem to have nowhere else to go. But simply pumping up the programs, improving the music and audiovisual effects, or jiggering the ministry won't solve our missional crisis. Something far more fundamental is needed" (37).

What is needed to is a CPM to race across the landscape sweeping people up in the movement / Kingdom of God.  Historically these types of movements don't start in the center or the middle class ... but on the fringe.  The reality is that the population segment that matters most is the 93 percentile ... those who are not in the Kingdom.  A CPM is needed to captivate the hearts and imagination of suburban families, urban artists, young professionals, the oppressed and marginalized, the Hispanics, the Asian population, the Middle Eastern and North African refugees, and the 12,000+ Muslims in our city.  The only way forward is to study the rhythms of a CPM, pray Luke 10:2b and continue to think and "color outside the lines."  Join us as we partner together to figure out how to make this a reality here in Tucson.