The New Testament does not present a direct command to plant churches. However, the upshot of the entire narrative, in conjunction with didactic literature therein, points to the priority of church planting in God’s redemptive plan.
Yet considering the absence of clear church planting directives in Scripture, missionaries and pastors might be tempted to look elsewhere for guidance in the practice of establishing new churches.
In the face of this temptation, Elbert Smith calls us to look to and uphold the New Testament as our primary source of guidance in the task of church planting. He contends,
“The lack of clear commands [in the New Testament] regarding church planting is obvious: not once was a command given that this or that model was to be the only normative way to plant churches. But the New Testament does describe church planting where the gospel is not as a primary task of sent-out ones. If one feels led to church planting, surely he will want to carefully consider the book of the New Testament that deals with that specific topic nine times. The New Testament, in the book of Acts, clearly describes nine church plants. Since the Scriptures are our norm for faith and practice, and since no other writing is God-breathed as is the Word of God, we must put the Scripture’s descriptions of church planting on a higher level of authority than those of any other source on the topic.”[i]
While we can glean wisdom from other sources (e.g., experience, sociology, anthropology, missiological literature, etc.), the Bible itself should remain the primary source that shapes our church planting endeavors.
[i] E. Elbert Smith, Church Planting by the Book (Fort Washington, PA: CLC Publications, 2015), 159, emphasis original.
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