There is, of course, another approach to church growth, which the C of E has been actively engaging in for more than 20 years: church-planting. This “Start from scratch” method has many merits to commend it. Church-plants typically engage effectively with unreached people, are almost always younger than the C of E average, and are often more diverse: qualities that have been identified as crucial for the whole Church (News, 27 November 2020).
They also seem to be highly effective at generating local leaders and ordained vocations. In my anecdotal observation, churches involved in planting seem to generate naturally more new leaders than longer-established parishes — sometimes ten times or more. This last point is particularly relevant, since many struggling parishes are finding it increasingly hard to find lay leaders and church officers.
Church-planters instinctively focus on developing a single healthy community (a new ecclesial roux), which can multiply and spread to form additional congregations. This approach also opens the door to incorporating lay leadership for congregations, a common practice in the global Church and one that initiatives such as Cultivate, Myriad, Mustard Seed, and Seedbed are currently championing.Read it all.
"Perhaps we need more mixed-ecology projects such as these: effective church-plants spreading their impact, and diverse networks of churches reproducing renewal through the parish system."https://t.co/I6SFUAxZ3H
— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 10, 2024