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Church Planting the Nike Way

Friday, 5 March 2010  | Allan Quak, Church planter, Northside Evangelical Church, Queensland


As we were deciding how to deal with these complications and difficulties, we met with a couple of church planters who challenged us to use the Nike method of Church Planting—JUST DO IT. This challenge forced us to seriously face three questions: -

How many people does it take to start a church?

In our case it was 8 adults, 3 teenagers (my daughters), and a baby. We just started meeting, praying, inviting, serving, sharing and trusting. We deliberately made the Gospel central to all we did and God brought the increase.

How much time does it take to start a church?
All of us had full time jobs, and there were no paid workers. Yet when you stop and analyse how much time we actually spend on frivolous and meaningless activities it is amazing how much time you can “find” for serving God.

How much money does it take to start a church?

Our expenses for the first 12 months were $9000 which is an investment of $22 per adult per week - hardly a budget breaker. In fact it could be done for less because we decided to spend $5500 on new sound and visual gear. The rest was spent on room hire and community events.

Currently our church community consists of 60-70 adults, teenagers, and children. Our annual costs have gone up, we have expanded our ministry into the community, and we are just beginning to pay a part-time wage. I have no doubt we would have seen much greater growth if we had a full-time paid worker right from the beginning—but if that was a criteria for starting we would never have started.

So this is the challenge: -

There are plenty of people and groups who have more of the key ingredients then we had:- more people, more time and more financial resources. If you have a heart to plant a church don’t let what you lack become an obstacle to getting started. Instead use the Nike method of Church Planting.

JUST DO IT


Comments

Peter Bentley
March 25, 2010, 7:58PM
When I consider the financial expenses you outline and compare to many denominational ventures, it is hard to justify millions being spent with little to be seen and many ventures closed. Surely we could have done better by giving money to keen Christians outside our denominations and say 'go for it' - after all hopefully our goals are the same. Unfortunately the denominational ghetto usually takes precedence, rather than a radical giving away of our many rich resources. A sign of a truly ecumenical and evangelical church today would be to support other Christians in this much needed work.
David Secomb
April 14, 2010, 7:48PM
Good work! Isn't that how a church should start anyway? Speak the work relying on the Holy Spirit and let God take you forward in faith hope and love.
Moses Kimani
April 26, 2011, 7:14PM
Interesting piece! I'd be interested to know how things are going now, 1 year down the line.

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