Church Planting Movements - India

In the year, 1999, David Garrison, the Associate Vice President, Strategy Coordination and Mobilization, for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention completed an assignment to profile the growing number of Church Planting Movements that were appearing in their work around the world. The final result of this assignment was published by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in a small pamphlet of 60 pages, appropriately titled, Church Planting Movements. Although many people in India were involved in missions work long before this report was written and there are many missionaries still working in India today, the major emphasis of their work so far has been making new converts, social works, and building church buildings. There are a number of reasons why missionaries have not been successful in initiating true Church Planting Movements (CPMs), which will be examined in detail in this book, but the primary reasons are because traditional methods of planting churches involve enormous costs in purchasing land and building church buildings, and there remains a shortage of seminary-trained ministry leaders who have studied and understood what a CPM is all about. However if they were encouraged, equipped, and educated, there are enough indigenous workers ready, willing, and able to evangelize the lost and start Church Planting Movements across India. Today there is an increased desire among village pastors to plant new churches, but they are often delayed because of the tremendous burden and crippling financial drain involved in obtaining land and building church buildings. Following the traditional model it would not take long before all of the efforts of church planters would be poured into fundraising for building churches. However, after reading David Garrison's report, one will realize two things: first is how important it is to place more emphasis on biblical church planting strategies among the marginalized communities; and second is how important it is to understand from the book of Acts what are the qualities and characteristics of a genuine Church Planting Movement.