 Thank you God for this day. Thank you that brother Allen can be with us here and share something that's been on his heart for many many years Pray you'll give him the grace the strength May our hearts be open as we receive and listen in Jesus name Yesterday on our way here from New York. We stopped at a rest stop and a lady asked my wife. Are you a sister? so My wife clarified for her will ask her what what what do you mean and Anyway, this lady told a very interesting story that she had been inactive as growing up as Protestant and was looking for something to reactivate her faith something warmer and she said Lord I'm going to look I need a sign just don't let it be Jehovah's Witness Mormons or Catholic and And so for three days in a row she saw a certain cross she decided to go there and ended up in a Catholic Church It's very interesting story, but it just reminded me there are people who are looking people who are searching and God wants lost people to be found now as you drive about our country here The US one of things I like to do as I go through towns is to see what kinds of churches are there and So typically you'll see around the Plaza there You'll see a Methodist Church or Presbyterian Church a Catholic Church and you'll soon see Baptist churches and It's interesting in this country the average attendance in a church is 85 if you would look in a town Find the number of churches Multiply it by 85 and compare it with the town population You'd get a sense for how many of the people in that area are actually in church Now it's about six years ago in traveling for six days through Quebec. I Saw about five churches. That's it We went to one of them on a Sunday morning a little Baptist Church in Quebec City. It is absolutely astounding what is happening in our country and in Canada This morning what I would like us to do is to think first about the need for planting churches in North America and beyond Secondly, what are some reasons good solid reasons for planting churches? And then finally what are some of the mindsets that either hinder or encourage church planting to happen? First the need for planting churches in North America and as you may be aware as you Read or listen or watch news the moral crisis in America in North America is just absolutely phenomenal Just within a five short years or ten short years It's just astounding it leaves you breath Breathless and you wonder what's the next new frontier that's going to be broken morally in this country? It just keeps coming at us like you you can't imagine Think as well with us of the theological crisis in North America where you actually have so-called ministers usually of mainline churches Who will say that they don't believe in God or that it's even necessary to believe that Jesus Actually rose from the dead. There's a lady pastor in a uniting church in in Canada in Toronto who publicly said I think what the resurrection is all about is not so much whether Jesus actually physically rose from the dead but it's about being good people and loving and caring and helping each other and When she made that announcement that she was actually an atheist two-thirds of her church hundred fifty people got up and walked out All of them should have If she wasn't going to walk out they should have but that's just an illustration of the theological crisis in North America several years ago on a talk show There was a rabbi a priest and a high-profile television preacher evangelical of some sort and When they asked the question do you think that people need to that people who are not Saved or born again Will go to heaven if they haven't heard of Jesus will they go to heaven or will they go to hell? The rabbi and the priest both said they didn't think they would go to hell The pastor said well for me I Believe that you need to believe in Jesus to go to heaven. What's this about for me? He was squirming he was squirming there you think of the lifestyle crisis in North America This comes out of the moral and theological crisis Think of the church attendance crisis in North America For one one thing that I've observed in the last 10 or 15 years is the growing Reluctance of people to commit to being a member in a local church Even in our own churches we have people attending who do not want to become members of a local church The whole concept even of having a church membership is in question So there's a negative view of church and of church membership in This book the American church in crisis by David Olson a study was done of Hundreds and hundreds of churches across this country from the year 2000 to the year 2005 Here's what he discovered on a given weekend This is in the United States 88 out of a hundred people will not be in any church 77% of the people in America have no life-giving connect into a local church 77% on any given weekend 91% of Americans will not go to an evangelical church 91 that's nine out of ten people if you take the un-churched in North America and I'm assuming that this is referring specifically to the United States In this country there are a hundred and ninety million people who are un-churched If you would take all of those people and put them in a country by themselves It would be the fifth most populous country in the world 190 million un-churched people all around us The fastest growing religious block in America is not Islam It's the nuns. No, that's not Catholic ladies It's the NONES those who self-identify as having no religious affiliation Pew research said that in five years The nuns in the US grew from 15 percent to 20 percent while 10% of those who are 65 or older would identify as nuns Those who are under 30 33% in This country will say they have no religious affiliation Let's just for example, I'm assuming some of the states that you're from Would be like Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio New York and so on In this book, he has maps that show what has happened either in the increase or decrease in church membership This map is Protestant mainline churches There is not even one single state that registered an increase in church attendance from the year 2000 to 2005 Not even one. In fact, some of them registered as high as 19% decrease in a five-year period. That's Wyoming New Mexico's 17% decrease New York my state 10% decrease just in five years from Protestants It's slightly better when you look at the map for evangelical churches Those that are gray had a decrease those that were white had a slight increase like 1% Pennsylvania actually had a 3% increase sounds a little more positive All across this country people are leaving the churches What is going on? How can we turn that around now? There are several Canadians here I know and for your benefit in 1950 Protestants and Anglicans were 45% of the Canadian population now. They only represent 11% in 1900 the born-against the evangelicals were 25% of Canadian population now they are less than 8% in Canada the fastest growing religions Muslim at nearly 5% per year Buddhists 4% per year The nuns in Canada are now 24% of the Canadian population, but in British Columbia 40% of British Columbia identifies as none But now if you think that's bad Think about Quebec seven to eight million. We're only one out of 200 is born-again There is not a single country in the Western Hemisphere that is so low Not Haiti not Mexico not even Uruguay at 3% with a large percent being atheists in fact if Quebec were to be on par with the rest of the percentage of Evangelical churches in Canada they would need 3000 churches to be planted today Brothers and sisters in North America. We are living in a mission field all around us The need for planting churches is amazing. It's Overwhelming, but why should we plant churches earnest mention that there's no command in the New Testament go ye therefore and plant churches So how in the world do we come up with this? first in Church planting we cooperate with Jesus as he fulfills his promise in Matthew 16. I Will blank my church. What is it? I will build my church He promised to build his church How will he fulfill that promise where there are no churches or where the numbers of churches are in serious decline? He does not do it all by himself Just like in many other aspects of life In him all things consist by him all things grow But farmers still do go out and plant corn and beans and other things He doesn't do it by himself William Kerry a Baptist minister in 1792 or 91 Proposed the idea radical at the time that if businesses like the British East India Company would go out would form Corporations and go out and start businesses in different parts of the world Why wouldn't we use he called it means or methods for reaching the heathen for Christ as well? Why wouldn't we organize societies? Rather than just waiting for God to reach them. He was told young man sit down If God went wants to reach the heathen he can do it and he can do it without you I'm sure he sat down, but after the meeting was over. He got up. He went out He organized the first Protestant mission agency and then offered himself to be sent He's called the father of modern-day Protestant missions God does not do it all by himself Thus mission boards came into existence. Why wouldn't we organize to do the same for church planting in North America and beyond? To the unchurched in our counties in our states in our countries and in our neighboring countries Second the way the early church Applied the Great Commission was by starting new churches earnest referred to this. Jesus said go and make disciples You watch them when they went out and what did they do they announced the gospel? They chattered the gospel Those who believe they gather them together They were called Iglesias Churches sorry Iglesias got my Spanish mixed in there or called out ones It was an assembly of people that were coming together You see that all through the book of Acts in first Corinthians 3 Paul says one plants another waters God gives the increase he talks about the ministry of planting and it's in the context of churches That's the second reason for planting churches third The third one is that new and small churches Grow and assimilate new people more easily than older established churches For example, if you have a little church of 20 people Do you think a church can be a church if it only has 20 people? I think so and let's suppose you would hear from the Lord and you would fast and pray and witness and you say This year we purpose with God's help to add to grow by 25% Let's get five more people would that sound doable? It does but let's suppose you have a church of 300 To grow by 25% in one year it would require how many people? Well 10% would be 30 right? 30 60 you'd have to add 75 people in one year Would you even be able to get 75 people into the building? and So just to illustrate new and small churches grow and assimilate new people more easily It's in new churches. Everybody is needed. We know why we're there. We know what our purpose is We want to win more people fourth Studies have shown that church planting is necessary for denominations to survive When you hear of denominations working at merging together typically It's a sign of denominations that are dying Denominations that are growing are not talking about Finding the lowest common denominator in order to unite with everybody else They're busy growing But those churches that are waning and their members are aging You know there are churches in this country. They don't even have children They don't hear the voice of any children disturbing the worship service on Sunday They haven't had them for years So if we want our movements to grow we must be serious about church planting one study says thus Every denomination reporting an increase in membership reported an increase in the number of congregations conversely Every denomination reporting an increase in the total number of congregations also recorded an increase in members Now the opposite is also true Every denomination reporting a decrease in membership reported a decrease in congregations So I'm here to ask you this morning Do we really want This movement the Anabaptist movement and the the virtue is not in the name Anabaptist But in being a back to the Bible Christ focused Bible honoring and obeying movement. Do we really want it to survive? How much do we want it to survive? What price are we willing to pay for it to survive? If so, then we must be serious about planting new churches In the fifth place we plant new churches because in doing so More people can participate More gifts can be discovered More workers can be developed As churches get larger and I'm not against large churches I can't be because the first one in the New Testament grew to be very large Jerusalem, right? so that's also a New Testament church as well and The Lord did scatter them through persecution at some point, but as churches get larger Then you tend to specialize more you're going to pick the one who can lead the singing the best you're going to pick the ones who can teach the best and So on and on it goes in small churches, and I'm not arguing for doing things sloppily Carelessly, but in small churches. It's all hands on deck Everybody has to work Everybody has to help and in doing that you discover gifts Because Christ is in the business of giving gifts to people Sometimes he gives gifts just for a short period of time sometimes for a lifetime But he loves to give gifts to people and we discover them in church planting situations because everybody is needed That was number five number six It is good to plant churches because church planting is an excellent way to reach ethnic minorities to reach ethnic minorities There are approximately a hundred and sixty distinct languages living languages being spoken in the US Actually, there are more languages than that Did you know that in our country? 13% of the homes do not speak English It might be Pennsylvania Dutch. It might be French. It might be something else They prefer something out of other than English. How are we going to reach those people? So are we going to make sure that they all learn to speak English first before they can go to church? No, we need to find ways to reach the ethnic minorities By church planting there are some in every ethnic group that love cultural mixes They love to go in an ethnically Multicultural congregation, but they're in the minority most birds of a feather like to worship together Now people of different ethnic backgrounds will agree to work At the workplace together they have to to survive But when it comes to worship we prefer to worship in our heart language Church planting is a great way to reach the ethnic minorities in this country There are so many immigrants coming to our countries both to Canada and to the US For us as Christians instead of being afraid of that we should see that as a goldmine of opportunity For reaching people from parts of the world where if you would openly share the gospel You might be at best put in jail or at worst put in the graveyard Here we can freely reach them We can share the gospel with them We can share a Bible with them Church planting is a good way to reach ethnic minorities Next it is a field of ministry with few competitors. There'll always be plenty to do You don't have to worry about somebody taking your job Let them take it and you go off and you start another church There is so much to be done and in the process you will grow exceedingly Next church life becomes very interesting when you have growth goals and new people coming into church It's like welcoming a new baby into the family for the first months. It turns everything upside down And then you find your new normal again But these babies are so precious and so wonderful and that's the way it is when new people come into our churches And they see things in the Bible that we didn't see and they ask questions We never thought of and they have suggestions that we just it just never occurred to us and It makes church life so much more interesting To be able to come to church and see your neighbor there. He said oh, I've prayed for an I'm my neighbor And he showed up today. Isn't that wonderful and you all rejoice together 9th church planting is an effective strategy for social local and national renewal Now we may choose to curse the growing darkness in our countries as we see it moral and theological darkness But someone says instead of cursing the darkness light a candle now Both france and britain according to historians were ripe for violent revolutions And france had one a godless and bloody revolution Religiously france has still not over recovered from that Over 80 percent of french people have never Had a bible or read from a bible Now britain historians say was equally ripe for revolution But what did britain have that france did not have? britain had george whitfield and john and charles westley Now whitfield preached to large crowds of thousands without microphone And one many to christ, but what did john westley do he preached to thousands also in the open air But he gathered them in groups, which he called classes And then those began to develop and eventually became churches and the churches eventually became the methodist the nomination movement And so historians say if britain would not have had the westley's It would have had a revolution like france Church planting is an effective strategy for the renewal of our nations As we gather disciples together And care for our communities 10th church planting is a vision big enough and challenging enough for our young people And our young families Everybody needs a cause bigger than themselves for which to live You see people rallying around all kinds of causes like let's ban plastic straws And so on but what about a cause that goes beyond this life? A cause that's connected to the word of god and to the people of god the church This is big enough To make many Sacrifices to move our bodies around to change our occupations as the bible says without a vision the people Parish another word that could be used. There's the people scatter I'd like to give one more yet though reason for church planting That is church planting is a way to conserve our people as they move about For health employment education, thank you and weather and so on Our people are constantly on the move. They will always be on the move looking for work Going for study and so on Where are they going to go to church? Why not be consciously at work to follow them? To equip them before they go to support them as they do Why not train our people this way? If you are going to move find a faithful church or start one Find a faithful church or start one Now when you drive through our cities In america, and i'm not so well acquainted with canada, so i'll speak for america. You'll see Baptist churches. You'll see Methodist churches You'll see some Presbyterians Congregational Episcopalian churches, but the ones you'll see the most are Baptist and Methodist Why? There was a reason for it as the frontier began moving west The Congregational churches the Presbyterians and the Episcopalians say Only those who have a seminary degree May be duly authorized and ordained to be pastors and priests But what did baptist and Methodist do? They had their circuit riding preachers And they would go out and organize the frontiersmen and they would choose somebody to be a lay preacher And then the the circuit rider would come around again and see how it was going and encourage them and eventually the lay preachers became ordained preachers Well, why do we not see as many Mennonite churches as we drive across the country? Oh our roots went deep into that good soil And the frontier got away from us. It's taking a while for us to catch up Now we are moving we are scattering the salts being spread around It's just that it takes us a while longer to get there But we could be more creative. We could be more proactive We could be more flexible. We could be more willing to take risks and we could see Our churches being spread around the countries As the baptist and Methodist did Now in the third place, I'd like to talk about a few mindsets that either hinder or encourage church planting In north america and beyond first the mindsets that hinder Here are some of them Well, the way we've always done it or well, we've never done it that way before Well, the apostles could have said that too in the book of acts. We've never done it that way before But no, they had the Holy Spirit who who pushed them and they had persecution to help them go We could say well, no one will accept our beliefs Well, not everybody will Jesus already said that but some will You know, there are people that believe some really crazy stuff Like wearing holy underwear Or like if your marriage is going to last in eternity, you have to get married in a certain temple Or I'm speaking about the Mormons now, you know people will actually believe that People believe strange things When the people who tell them those strange things really believe them So why wouldn't some people believe what we see in the bible when we show it to them? Of course, they will some will some will say well It's too far away For example, one group In alaska was asking for help and they were told well, you're too far away Well, now we have the internet we have Economic plane travel. We have so many opera options that did not have in the past. Don't say it's too far away Don't say that some say well, there are too many churches already. We've already looked at that Some would say well, we need to have a solid substantial sized group before we can start a church like maybe 50 or 75 or 100 You look in the new testament when apostle paul traveled about he started from scratch Couldn't we still do that today has the holy spirit stopped doing that Others say well, we might make some mistakes and fail That's true But you'll fail forward you will have learned and for sure if you do nothing you will have failed as well What will we say in the judgment day to christ? No, I didn't try because I was afraid I would make a mistake and fail Of course we'll make mistakes, but we'll learn from them Someone would say well, we don't need to say words. We just let people see our lives and then they'll get it And sometimes I even see quotes approving quotes of francis of assisi Who says do all you can to preach the gospel and if necessary use words? Well, where did that come from? We have to say like this do all you can to preach the gospel and whenever possible use words Because when the lost people look at good people, they don't think the gospel they just think I could never be like that That must be their culture. That's the way they were born and bred I have a an Algerian friend who came to christ And when he went back to visit his people in Algeria, they were looking at a movie of the nickel mine shooting And the amish were forgiving the shooter And he heard his uncles say How how did they do that that they just must be born and bred that way. That's their culture They weren't getting it And so sinners don't get it dead people don't get it So we need to use words to explain the gospel someone say well, we don't have enough ordained leadership Well, send out commissioned people send out lay people and later on you can ordain and walk alongside them and encourage them Say well, we don't have enough money We need to have a church building first Well, I don't like to tell you this but there are a lot of cheap church buildings across the us and canada But don't think there first use your living room You can get a lot of people in there Especially in the living rooms of many houses in north america And once you got that full then the locals who are joining you will help you get a building I heard one pastor say well This team that's going to go to a certain place. Do they have a five-year plan? A five-year plan. How do you do that in church planning? You might have been able to do it in your successful large business But I don't know how that works Imagine telling paul paul don't you go unless you first write out your five-year plan All right. What are some mindsets that encourage church planting first? Jesus will always be relevant And he will always be at work drawing people to himself. He said so If we point people to him He will attract people to himself He is building and he will build his church and it didn't stop A hundred years ago. He is still doing so. He already said The gates of hell of death shall not withstand the forward march of my church It can't resist the ongoing movement of the church of jesus christ Here's another mindset god wants lost people to be found and he wants to use us to find them He wants them to be found more than we want to be used to find them He really wants to find lost people You can use this mindset jesus commands us to make disciples his commands are also promises If he commanded it, he will also empower us to do so Here's another one. God's will is god's bill When you think about a church building just use that one. God's will is god's bill He'll provide for you. He'll provide for you to get there. He'll provide for you while you are there William carrey said in 1792 expect great things from god attempt great things for god Bill bright as he started the campus crusade for christ said success in witnessing is taking the initiative To share the gospel In the power of the spirit and then you leave you trust the results with him Leave it with him Someone else said and i don't know who said it the potential of any movement to grow is in direct Proportion to its ability to mobilize its members to share its message Whether it's jihoba's witnesses, whether it's mormons, whether it's amway whether it's communist whether it's plexus you name it They grow because they mold mobilize their people We can mobilize our people to share the gospel Here is what a missionary in kairou egypt said and when i read this it convicted me he said I assume every muslim i meet Is open until he proves himself otherwise I thought oh lord have mercy on me. I assume people are closed until they prove themselves otherwise And i would like us this morning to embrace this lord helped me to assume that every person i meet Is open until he or she Proves himself otherwise Jesus said to his disciples who had gone to get lunch for him Lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they are what? White unto harvest and so when the disciples would have looked up What would they have seen they would have seen the samaritans coming out of the town At the invitation of that lady come and see a man who told me everything i ever did might he be the christ And jesus talked to them and they said We believe that you are the savior of the world come and stay with us And he stayed with them for a couple days more the disciples looked at the samaritan said half breeds hard rebels heretics jesus said look A harvest that is white White how do we see people how do we look at communities Do we see them as hard or do we look at them as being ripe or potentially ripe? I'd like to conclude With this quote from gray livingston Who it was the founder of the frontiers mission movement focusing specifically on muslims. Here's his quote The history of missions is all about weak Barely competent people Who believe the one who sent them Could accomplish his purposes even through the likes of them There are only two kinds of people in the world The weak ones who make themselves available to god And the weak ones who don't Are you making yourself available to him? Let us pray That all across our churches in the us in canada and down into mexico and beyond God will pour out again a mighty spirit of personal witnessing Faithful disciple making Courageous and creative church planting He's done it before He can do it again Let us bow our heads to pray Father in heaven, we lift up to you our great countries that are becoming increasingly spiritually and morally needy all around us But father you have people that you are calling to yourself And you have churches that you in mind that you want to be planted here. We are this morning Weak people but we are willing We are available However you want to use this Do it for the your own pleasure For the glory of your name For the fulfillment of your promises and for our own involvement and fulfillment And joy and fruit. We pray in jesus name. Amen