Our mission at Living Hope is to make disciples of all nations. We take this directly from the last words of our Lord in the Gospel of Matthew (Mat 28:19). We do this through every avenue we can: books, websites, videos, podcasts, articles, events, and more. We want to see those without hope in this world to gain the living hope that only salvation can bring. When I consider all the different ways to make disciples, I’ve come to see that planting new churches is among the most effective. Still, not everyone is onboard with the expense, effort, and time required to help new churches to start and become stable. Below we’ll consider three main objections to church planting.

1. People can just join our ministry online.

Living Hope International Ministries has always been on the cutting edge of distributing our Sunday teachings. In fact, I was chatting with a gentleman earlier this week that told me he had been listening to our teaching ministry since we were sending out cassette tapes. In the 1990s, we transitioned to audio CDs, and in 2005, we started uploading audio to our website. After experimenting for a time with video, we began uploading regularly to Vimeo in 2009 and transitioned to YouTube in 2017. This has and continues to be a vital part of our ministry.

But here’s the thing. If you ask any of the dozens who watch us live or hundreds who check out the video during the week, they’ll tell you they’d rather have a local church with like beliefs than watch online. Having an in-person experience offers so much more. When you’re watching, you can see others, but they can’t see you. It’s good to be seen. It’s good to serve. It’s good to share life together. There are very many advantages to the in-person experience that those of us who have a local body of believers enjoy. Probably one of the biggest advantages is the ability to invite friends, neighbors, and coworkers to visit. If someone has a local church to attend, it’s much easier to invite others. Let’s take a look at a second objection.

2. Home fellowships are all we need.

We came from a movement that promoted meeting in the home over church buildings. There are significant advantages to fellowships, including low cost, intimacy, and comfort. People really know each other and can easily eat together. However, home fellowships are limited in what they can offer. Most homes can’t accommodate more than twenty people in a room, which limits the number of volunteers to handle preaching, children’s ministry, music, setup, refreshments, and other needs. Getting a group of thirty or forty or fifty greatly multiplies the pool of those willing to serve.

Another major advantage that churches have over home groups is durability. Home fellowships are fragile. They’re easy to start and easy to stop. The stability and longevity that churches have makes them hard to kill. At our home church in Latham, we have so many volunteers and layers of leadership that we can cover for each other when emergencies come up, people take vacations, or even when people die. Additionally, owning or renting a consistent space increases visibility and accessibility. Because our church is registered on the various map apps that people use, we get first-time visitors who want to check us out.

Still, home fellowships offer a wonderful opportunity to get together, and they are better than watching online. Please recognize that I’m not putting them down. I’m merely suggesting that as fellowships are better than being an isolated individual, so churches are better than home fellowships.

3. We need the resources for our own local church in Latham.

We’re not big enough to take on such an effort. Only denominations can start churches. Not so fast. I think this is one of those paradoxes we find Jesus talking about, like “the last will be first” (Mat 20:16) or “those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Mat 16:25) or “my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). It seems obvious that hoarding our resources—both people and financial—will enable us to have a much better local experience as we upgrade our facilities and enjoy having deep pools of volunteers.

But it doesn’t always work that way.

As a movement, you may feel like we’ve arrived. We have a stable multi-generational church in the capital region of New York. We have reliable teachers, musicians, and children’s workers. Whoop dee doo! You may be tempted to say, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years” (Luke 12:19). But what did Jesus say?

He called that guy a fool (Luke 12:20).

You see, Christianity is a walk of faith. When we are complacent, we don’t coast, we slow down. Like taking your foot off the accelerator in your car, you don’t just stay the same. You slow down and eventually stop. What I’ve seen is that walking by the spirit takes courage and trust. The times when I stepped out in faith are when I’ve grown with God. What about you?

Of course, it would be great if we had a nice fat reserve of millions of dollars, and a detailed plan based on experts in the field on how to successfully start churches before we started enabling others of like precious faith to do this. That would be nice, but it’s not reality.

Three years ago, we initiated our foray into church planting. We believed that Will and Becca Barlow (and their team) had what it takes to get something going in Louisville. We developed a plan and helped them launch. As he told people about what he was doing, something amazing happened. Quality people in established situations with good jobs said, “We feel God is calling us to uproot our lives and move to Louisville to help get this church going.” Over and over, people moved from other states to join the church plant, contributing to the momentum and excitement. Now, three years on, they have a small but capable church of 40+ people meeting each Sunday with a full kids’ program and worship team.

Last November, three of us visited Zach and Kayla Mayo in Cambridge, New Zealand and talked with them and their family about the possibility of starting a church there. We are still in the early stages of this, but it is looking promising so far. Hopefully, they can turn their home fellowship into a stable church that empowers them to reach many more people for Christ.

What’s next? Do you know of someone who would like to take this step? If so, please get in touch with us, and we’ll see what we can do. As God provides us the ability to help start churches around the world, we want to keep taking that step of faith. Some will succeed, and some will fail, but through it all, the gospel will be preached, and the lost will come to salvation. What could be more exciting than that?