Church Planting in the Secular West: Learning from the European Experience

By Stefan Paas

An expert study of church planting in the most secular part of contemporary Europe
 
In this book Stefan Paas offers thoughtful analysis of reasons and motives for missionary church planting in Europe, and he explores successful and unsuccessful strategies in that post-Christian secularized context.
 
Drawing in part on his own involvement with planting two churches in the Netherlands, Paas explores confessional motives, growth motives, and innovation motives for church planting in Europe, tracing them back to different traditions and reflecting on them from theological and empirical perspectives. He presents examples from the European context and offers sound advice for improving existing missional practices. Paas also draws out lessons for North America in a chapter coauthored with Darrell Guder and John Franke. Finally, Paas weaves together the various threads in the book with a theological defense of church planting.
 
Presenting new research as it does, this critical missiological perspective will add significantly to a fuller understanding of church planting in our contemporary context.
 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Nov 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781467446181

Stefan Paas

Stefan Paas is J.H. Bavinck Professor of Missiology and Intercultural Theology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Professor of Missiology at Theologische Universiteit Kampen. He has published extensively, in both Dutch and English, on Biblical Theology, Public Theology, and Missiology. His books include Church Planting in the Secular West: Learning from the European Experience (Eerdmans, 2016) which was selected as one of the ten "outstanding books on missiology" by International Bulletin of Mission Research and one of the five "outstanding practical theological books" by the journal Practical Theology.

Book preview

THE GOSPEL AND OUR CULTURE SERIES

A series to foster the missional encounter of the gospel with North American culture

John R. Franke

Series Editor

•  •

Volumes Published to Date

Lois Y. Barrett, editor, Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness

James V. Brownson et al., StormFront: The Good News of God

Michael W. Goheen, editor, Reading the Bible Missionally

Michael J. Gorman, Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission

Darrell L. Guder, Called to Witness: Doing Missional Theology

Darrell L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church

Darrell L. Guder, editor, Missional Church: A Vision for the

Sending of the Church in North America

George R. Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit:

Lesslie Newbigin’s Theology of Cultural Plurality

George R. Hunsberger, The Story That Chooses Us:

A Tapestry of Missional Vision

George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder, editors, The Church between

Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America

Stefan Paas, Church Planting in the Secular West:

Learning from the European Experience

Craig Van Gelder, editor, Confident Witness — Changing World:

Rediscovering the Gospel in North America

Church Planting in the Secular West

Learning from the European Experience

Stefan Paas

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

www.eerdmans.com

© 2016 Stefan Paas

All rights reserved

Published 2016

22 21 20 19 18 17 16  1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-7348-4

eISBN 978-1-4674-4618-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Paas, Stefan, 1969- author.

Title: Church planting in the secular west : learning from the European experience / Stefan Paas.

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016. | Series: The Gospel and our culture series | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016019780 | ISBN 9780802873484 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Church development, New—Europe. | Europe—Church history—20th century. | Secularism—Europe.

Classification: LCC BV652.24 .P33 2016 | DDC 254/.1094—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019780

Contents

Foreword, by John R. Franke

Introduction

1.  Church Planting and Its Reasons

1.1.  The Roots of Church Planting

1.2.  The Classic Paradigm: A Three-Stage Process

1.2.1.  Medieval Period

1.2.2.  Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676)

1.2.3.  Gustav Warneck (1834-1910)

1.2.4.  Joseph Schmidlin (1876-1944)

1.2.5.  Pierre Charles (1883-1954)

1.2.6.  Recent Catholic Documents

1.2.7.  Conclusion

1.3.  Modern Evangelical Paradigm: Church Planting as an Instrument of Evangelization

1.3.1.  From the Planting of the Church to the Planting of Churches

1.3.2.  A Modern Movement

1.3.3.  Organic Growth

1.3.4.  Scientific Approach

1.3.5.  Conclusion

1.4.  Late-Modern Evangelical Paradigm: Church Planting as Innovation

1.4.1.  The Introduction of Evangelical Church Planting in Modern Europe

1.4.2.  The DAWN Story

1.4.3.  Fresh Expressions of Church

1.5.  Three Motives behind Church Planting in Europe

2.  Planting Better Churches

2.1.  Mission and Confession

2.2.  Terminology

2.2.1.  Sectarian Church Planting

2.2.2.  Denominational Church Planting

2.2.3.  Confessional Church Planting

2.3.  Christendom Divided

2.3.1.  Making a New Church

2.3.2.  Confessionalization

2.4.  Historical Examples of Confessional Church Planting in Europe

2.4.1.  Territorial and Voluntary Christianity

2.4.2.  Anabaptists in the Sixteenth Century

2.4.3.  Baptists in the Seventeenth Century

2.4.4.  Pietists and Moravians in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

2.4.5.  Methodists in the Eighteenth Century

2.4.6.  Baptism and Methodism in Europe during the Nineteenth Century

2.4.7.  Characteristics of Free Church Planting in Europe

2.5.  Missiological Reflections

2.5.1.  Church and Mission: Undermining the Idea of a Christian Nation

2.5.2.  Church and Proselytism: An Ambiguous Analysis

2.5.3.  Church and Kingdom: Planting Socially Engaged Churches

2.5.4.  Church and Cultural Transformation: Resisting Completeness

2.5.5.  Church and World: From Revival to Mission

2.5.6.  The Unity of the Church and Mission: Expressing a Desire for Visible Unity

2.6.  Conclusion

3.  Planting More Churches

3.1.  Defining Growth

3.2.  The Missiological Framework

3.2.1.  Church Growth Theory and Church Planting

3.2.2.  Is Growth the Purpose of Mission?

3.2.3.  Pragmatism

3.2.4.  Conclusion

3.3.  The Logic of Church Growth Theory

3.3.1.  Giving Depth to Popular Claims

3.3.2.  Four Reasons Why Church Planting Furthers Church Growth

3.3.3.  Religious Market Theory

3.4.  Evaluating Religious Market Theory on Three Levels

3.4.1.  Micro-Level: The Rational Actor

3.4.2.  Meso-Level: Competing Religious Organizations

3.4.3.  Macro-Level: Religious Markets and the Religious Economy

3.4.4.  Some Conclusions for Church Planting

3.5.  Empirical Evidence

3.5.1.  What Is Growth in Church Growth Theory?

3.5.2.  How to Measure Growth?

3.5.3.  Research vs. Mobilization Rhetoric

3.5.4.  Evidence from the United States

3.5.5.  General Conversion Data in Europe

3.5.6.  Church Planting Evidence from Europe

3.5.7.  Conclusions

3.6.  Conclusions

4.  Planting New Churches

4.1.  Crisis and Renewal

4.2.  The Complexity of the Task

4.2.1.  The Many Challenges of the Post-Age

4.2.2.  More Church or Less Church?

4.2.3.  Conclusions

4.3.  Structures of Expectation

4.3.1.  No More Models

4.3.2.  Confessional Control

4.3.3.  Enabling the Process of Church Formation

4.3.4.  Conclusions

4.4.  Three Biotopes of Renewal

4.4.1.  Free Havens

4.4.2.  Laboratories

4.4.3.  Incubators

4.4.4.  Conclusions

4.5.  Church Planting as an Instrument of Renewal

5.  In Defense of Church Planting in Europe

5.1.  Justifications of Church Planting

5.2.  Biblical Arguments for Church Planting in Europe

5.2.1.  Church Planting in the New Testament

5.2.2.  Sheep Beget Sheep: The Organic Character of the Church

5.2.3.  All People Groups

5.2.4.  Conclusions

5.3.  Church Planting as a Theo-Logical Consequence

5.3.1.  Confessional Arguments

5.3.2.  Missiological and Ecclesiological Arguments

5.3.3.  Conclusions

5.4.  Conclusion

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

Scripture Index

Foreword

Why the North American Church Needs This Book

The mission of the Gospel and Our Culture Network (GOCN) is to serve as a catalyst for the transformation of Christian witness through innovative and useful research that is actionable in the life of the North American church. One of the central means by which we have worked at this mission is through the publication of the Gospel and Our Culture series. These books have covered various aspects of missional church life and ministry with a particular focus on the North American setting. This North American emphasis raises a natural question: why include a book on church planting from a European perspective? The simple answer is that the North American church needs this book and will find it to be a particularly helpful resource as it confronts the challenges of establishing new Christian communities in an increasingly secular and post-Christian context. There are numerous reasons for this assessment that will become abundantly clear to careful readers. I will address four that seem particularly significant.

First, and perhaps most importantly, Stefan Paas has written a carefully nuanced, finely detailed, and well researched work that will quickly take its place as one of the most helpful and informative books on church planting in secular and increasingly irreligious settings. It is the first book in the growing literature on church planting in the European setting to provide a transnational overview that brings the results of different research projects to bear on the challenges of establishing new Christian communities in the most secular of contexts. It also brings these insights into fruitful conversation with the disciplines of theology, missiology, and the social sciences in a compelling way that is uncommon in much of the available literature. In light of the significance of the task and the considerable financial and human resources that are invested in church planting, the type and quality of the factual analysis and interdisciplinary reflection provided here are invaluable if those resources are to be deployed in the most realistic and effective manner. For this reason, all North American churches, denominations, and mission agencies with commitments to church planting among the countries of Western Europe will find this volume to be essential reading.

Second, the value of this volume is not simply limited to those whose focus is on church planting in Western Europe. It is also a significant resource for those engaged in church planting in North America, particularly in some of the more post-Christian regions of the continent. The focus on the well-established secularism of Western Europe, marked by low and decreasing levels of church attendance and participation in baptisms, church weddings, and Christian funerals; a widespread lack of belief in traditional Christian teachings concerning God, Jesus, and the life to come; a general indifference toward religious questions and concerns; and an increasing distrust and hostility toward religion and religious institutions, is not unique to that setting but also describes in ever increasing ways the situation in North America. While North America as a whole may be two or three generations behind Western Europe in the emergence of a more fully post-Christian culture, we are surely headed in that direction. Indeed, significant parts of the continent (Canada and much of the Northeast, upper Midwest, and Pacific Northwest in the USA) are already deeply shaped by the experience of this cultural transition and may be well-described as secular and post-Christian in ways that, while not exactly the same, are quite similar to the circumstances of Western Europe and bear many of the same general characteristics. The work of establishing new Christian communities in these areas is particularly challenging and this volume will be especially helpful for those who engage in this work in terms of shaping their expectations and planning strategies.

Third, the volume takes a critical approach to the practice of church planting. While Paas is deeply committed to the practice of church planting in both theory and practice, teaching courses on the subject, supervising and assessing those who are interested in church planting, as well as participating in two church plants himself, he nevertheless has significant concerns about many of the models he has encountered. He therefore describes himself as a skeptical advocate of church planting. He does not present a romanticized or overly spiritualized view on church planting. Instead he casts a keen, analytical gaze on the various strategies and approaches that have shaped the activity of church planting in Western Europe in order to sharpen and strengthen the knowledge and skills necessary to envision, support, plan, and establish new churches in secular settings. This is important because in many cases the rationale for pursuing church planting, the intuitions about what it entails, and the assumptions concerning its effectiveness are based on unrealistic expectations that have significant consequences for both leaders and participants. Establishing new Christian communities that are sustainable over the long term is hard work that requires not only the considerable investment of time and effort, but also carefully thought out strategies and procedures. Given this reality, the critical, research based, and empirically verifiable approaches advocated and displayed by Paas in this volume are essential to the future of effective church planting models in North America as well as in Western Europe.

Fourth, the exploration, analysis, and vision of church planting displayed in this volume is theological and missiological in orientation rather than simply methodological and pragmatic. Indeed, the book stands as an outstanding example of the practically oriented, missional and ecclesial theology that the GOCN believes to be necessary for the realization of Lesslie Newbigin’s vision for the re-evangelization of the West. One of the chief concerns of this vision is rethinking and reimagining the structure and form of Christian witness from a missional perspective in a culture deeply shaped by post-Christian assumptions. This presents a challenge in that the formation and structures of the Western church are not missional, but rather have emerged in the context of a historical and social setting which for centuries was formally and officially Christian. In this context the church was intimately involved in shaping the religious and cultural life of Western society. This situation led to what is known as Christendom, a system of church-state partnership and cultural hegemony in which the Christian religion maintains a unique, privileged, and protected place in society and the Christian church is its legally and socially established institutional form. This model of the church, and the outlooks and intuitions that attend to it, are so deeply pervasive that even when the formal and legal structures of Christendom are not present in a formal way, as in the case of North America, its legacy is perpetuated in the traditions, patterns, structures, and attitudes that are its entailments.

In order to address this challenge, Newbigin articulated a model for missional Christian witness shaped by the interactions between the gospel, church, and culture. Missiologist George Hunsberger has provided a helpful summary of Newbigin’s work on the interactions between gospel, church, and culture (George R. Hunsberger, The Newbigin Gauntlet: Developing a Domestic Missiology for North America, in The Church between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996], 3-25). He speaks of three axes that form what he calls the Newbigin triad: the gospel-culture axis as the conversion encounter; the gospel-church axis as the reciprocal relationship; and the church-culture axis as the missionary encounter. The gospel-culture axis affirms that all articulations of the gospel are culture specific. The gospel-church axis affirms that the understanding of the gospel of any particular community is shaped by the theological and ecclesial traditions of that community. The church-culture axis affirms the plurality of the church as culturally distinct Christian communities embody varying conceptions of the gospel in the midst of their particular social and historical circumstances. Each of these elements is at work in the theological and missiological assessments and articulations of approaches to church planting offered here.

In addition to this general pattern of theological-ecclesial-cultural reflection, Paas excels at connecting theological ideas with social theory in ways that stimulate fresh thinking and provide concrete approaches to the practice of church planting. For instance, his discussion of contemporary innovation theory in relation to church planting and theology provides a fascinating set of possibilities for ecclesial renewal developed through a discussion and analysis of free havens, laboratories, and incubators. In this context he offers a theological-cultural framework that suggests that while innovation and renewal cannot be strictly organized and/or programmed, it can be stimulated and promoted in ways that also respect the scriptural, creedal, and confessional structures of the church. In these ways, as well as others, this volume may be understood as providing a missional theology of church planting in the aftermath of Christendom. As such, it has the potential to provide a much needed practical and theological framework for the practice of church planting and new church development in North America.

For these reasons, as well as others, I believe this book to be of inestimable value for the North American church. It is a volume that has the potential to help stimulate new and vital practices of church planting in an ever increasing post-Christian North American culture as well as in other contexts experiencing the growth of secularism. It is one of the most engaging, stimulating, and well-researched books on church planting to have been published in recent years. The GOCN is honored that Stefan Paas agreed to publish his work in the Gospel and Our Culture. I look forward with great anticipation to seeing the impact it will have on the practices of church planting in North America as well as in Western Europe among those who are committed to the Christian renewal and re-evangelization of the West.

JOHN R. FRANKE

Theologian in Residence, Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis General Coordinator, Gospel and Our Culture Network, North America Professor of Religious Studies and Missiology, Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven

Introduction

Church Planting in Europe

Planting churches in secular Europe is like laying out a garden in hard soil and an arid climate. Basically, it can be done in two ways. The first option is to keep adding tons of water and fertilizer. In this way, oil sheiks grow exuberant parks in deserts. The possibilities are virtually limitless. You could even create a tropical forest in the Arctic tundra, as long as you spend huge amounts of money to arrange the right conditions. The result, of course, is highly artificial even if it looks spectacular. As soon as you quit, your beautiful garden would wither and die. Many new churches in Europe are like those gardens. They depend on models imported from other continents, which are only sustainable because every year dozens of missionaries or immigrants fly in to replenish their numbers. Or they continue to draw Christians from other churches to grow their ranks.

There is another way, however. It is far more difficult, and far less spectacular. Planting a garden where the climate is bad or where the soil has been exhausted by generations of farmers takes a lot of skill and effort. Above all you must know the situation; you must have knowledge about the climate, and the history of cultivation; you must have expertise and persistence. You might want to do research, to find out whether there are ancient natural irrigation systems. And of course you must know everything about the local vegetation, because you want to grow something that belongs here, not something that may look wonderful but can only flourish because you keep it under intensive care. Eventually, you may have a garden that is sustainable. If your only frame of reference is a tropical rain forest, the garden may look unimpressive, but it gives food, shade, and joy to the people who live here.

What This Book Is About

This is not a handbook or a methodology of church planting. There are more than enough of those already.¹ Neither is it a program or a missionary strategy. Instead I want to provide an analysis of church planting in the most secular part of Europe. I want to know why people do it, what they expect from it, and to what extent their expectations are fulfilled. Some good research (and much sloppy research) into these questions has been done before, and I will refer to it in the pages that follow. Also I will present some new research. Curiously, up until now a cross-national survey, combining insights and results from different research projects, and reflecting on these with the help of theology and the social sciences, has not been done yet. This is surprising, given the magnitude of the claims that surround church planting, and the enormous amounts of energy and money that are invested in it. Knowledge of the facts on the ground, joined with analysis and reflection, must inform the policies of sending organizations and denominations, as well as the growing number of European churches that have church planting on their agenda.

The main part of this book consists of an analysis of reasons and motives for missionary church planting in Europe. In chapter 1 these different reasons for church planting in secular Europe will be introduced. Most if not all church planting in secular Europe is inspired by confessional motives, growth motives, and innovation motives. Although in practice these reasons are often intertwined, I will discuss them in separate chapters, tracing them back to different traditions, reflecting on them from theological and empirical perspectives, presenting some examples from European soil, and finally giving some advice to improve existing practices. I will close this book with a theological defense of church planting, taking up the different threads in this book and more or less weaving them together.

For some readers this book may come across as too critical. I believe that there are good reasons to criticize many modern examples of church planting in Europe, and all the talk that seeks to justify them. But it may be good to explain that I am not a critic of church planting per se. I have been involved in two church plants in the Netherlands myself, one of them in the early 1990s when I did not even know that what we were doing was called church planting. My family and I have been truly blessed by this involvement. Most of my best friends are church planters. For more than ten years I have been writing about evangelism and church planting, and in my own denomination I have been one of the first to embrace it. I teach courses in church planting, I lead assessments of church planters, and I have supervised many students with an interest in church planting. I believe in the importance of church planting, and I enjoy doing it. Yet, I have my doubts about many (perhaps most) of the examples I see. So, if anyone asks me about my view of church planting, my answer is that I am a skeptical advocate. This sounds paradoxical, but it best describes my position as someone who is committed to church planting yet is unable to share the complete dedication of some of his friends. This book is therefore also a kind of self-examination. I hope to make clear how someone can be a committed critic, or a critical sympathizer, of church planting in today’s Europe.

Which Church Planting?

Church planting is not a protected brand. There are no textbook definitions of what may count as a genuine church plant. For many Christians, Roman Catholics in particular, church planting (plantatio ecclesiae) designates the classic activity of the first foundation of the Christian church in the so-called mission fields. Any other Christian community formation, subsequent to this first planting, may be an additional structure or an extension of the church, but it is not church planting. If this were the only definition of church planting, this book would not have been written. After all, Christianity entered Europe centuries ago, and there are churches everywhere. Others however, evangelical Protestants in particular, contend that church planting still happens in Europe, perhaps more than ever. Clearly, they have a different understanding of what it means to plant a church.

As there is no definition that satisfies everyone, I have left the concept as open as possible. In principle, every initiative that presents itself as church planting qualifies as an object of this study. However, if I would maintain that approach consistently, this book could only lead to the most general conclusions. In order to reach more focus I have therefore built in two limitations.

First, I will approach church planting from a missiological perspective. This book deals with the missionary relevance of new Christian community formation. In short, this means that the intention to influence the world outside the Christian community is the prime motivation of church planting initiatives that are discussed in the following pages. This leaves out all new communities emerging more or less accidentally out of church fights, but it includes sectarian church planting insofar as its sectarianism includes a critique of the missionary relevance of other churches. To the extent that they try to reach out beyond their original ethnic core group, immigrant churches are also included in my approach.

Second, I have limited myself to secular Europe, or, more exactly, to Western Europe after the Second World War. This is the part of the globe where I was born and where I have always lived. In my opinion, it is also the context where assumptions of missionary church planting can be tested in the most exacting circumstances. Within this region I concentrate by and large on research from Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, with some (mostly implicit) input from Belgium, France, and Scandinavia. To gain access to other parts of Europe would require more skills than I have, since little good research has been done, and what has been done is usually not translated and hard to find. Moreover, Europe is simply too large and too diverse to cover in one book. Thus, this book does not deal with church planting in Africa, Eastern or Southern Europe, Australia, or the United States. Historical and cross-cultural perspectives do appear, but only insofar as they are relevant for my discussion of missionary church planting in post-war Europe.

Secular and Evangelical: Some Words about Terminology

The term secular I use in the common-sense meaning of not religious.² Very secularized nations are characterized by low and decreasing levels of church attendance (although formal membership may be quite high), low and decreasing levels of other types of church involvement (baptisms, church weddings, Christian funerals, etc.), widespread lack of belief in traditional Christian doctrines (a personal God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, heaven and hell, etc.), a general indifference towards traditional religious questions (apatheism), and cultural elites that are often quite critical of religion and religious institutions. In such countries devoted Christians and committed atheists are usually rather small minorities, while the large majority of the population considers itself somewhat spiritual (in different degrees), as long as this does not include submission to the authority of an institution. Moreover, while Christianity in most of these nations still holds a place as the religion (the enemy we love to hate), the steady growth of Muslim minorities (up to almost 10% of the population in some countries) has caused a new dynamic, pushing towards equal treatment (taking away Christian privileges) and sometimes evoking vicious nationalistic reactions. For young, self-confident Muslims Europe has become a mission field as well, and every year a small number of native Europeans convert to Islam. On the other hand, a certain number of young Muslims either lose their faith or become Christians.

Typically, apart from the explosion of church formation among Christian immigrants, church planting in these countries is difficult. Outside areas with concentrations of evangelical Protestants (the various Bible belts), church plants take a lot of time to grow into some sort of maturity, and they usually remain small (perhaps around 50 people). Often they are started by a single pioneer, since the churches in these areas are not able to provide launch teams of mature Christians. On the other hand, there are good reasons to believe that these small churches often contain more converts from other religions or from no religion at all than larger churches in areas that are more favorable to church growth. Also, there is a growing wealth of evidence that Christians in some of the most secularized nations are finding new ways to witness, and start new missionary initiatives. Interestingly, especially in these countries the process of continuing secularization seems to be slowing down among the younger generations, for the first time since the Second World War.³ Stories of Europeans who become followers of Jesus, against the current of their culture, can be heard as well. They are a far cry from a so-called people movement, but exactly this makes these narratives so profound and touching. From different corners of the continent rumors begin to spread that the age of Christianity may not be over yet. Especially in chapters 2-4 more detail can be found about the different dimensions of doing mission and church planting in secular areas.

My discussion partners in this book, both theologians and practitioners, are mostly evangelical Protestants both from within or without Europe. They are some of the most diligent church planters on the planet. However, especially in Europe there is much confusion about the meaning of evangelical, so it may be expedient to provide a few words of explanation.

In the Anglo-Saxon world evangelicals are those Christians who trace their theological and spiritual origins back to the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century and to the revival movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.⁴ From a European perspective the term is quite inclusive, comprising virtually all Protestants who consider themselves more or less orthodox. They can be found in so-called mainline churches and in other churches; they can be Calvinists or Arminians; they may be Charismatics or Presbyterians. Individual conversion, personal experience of faith, a high view of the Bible, and a desire for the gospel to have an impact on society are among the characteristics of evangelicals in this Anglo-Saxon understanding. Pentecostals, who have a more recent origin, can also be grouped under the evangelical movement, even if many older evangelicals would frown upon some of their prominent characteristics. Most evangelicals adhere to a congregational and denominational view of the church, making them largely sympathetic towards church planting. I think it is fair to say that evangelicals make up the majority of Protestants, both in the United States and in Britain. As Anglo-Saxon evangelicals have been among the most dedicated missionaries in the modern world, most Protestants from Africa and Asia would also be counted as evangelicals, regardless of the denominational badge they wear. In short, most missionaries who come to Europe from abroad now are evangelicals, either from the classic revivalist kind or from the more recent Pentecostal kind.

Whenever I use the word evangelical in this book, I refer to this Anglo-Saxon concept. However, it is important to know that continental Europeans usually understand the word evangelical quite differently, even if they are evangelicals in the American and British sense. German evangelisch, French évangelique, and Spanish evangélica roughly mean Protestant in general. In other words, these words designate so-called mainline churches, even if it means some stretch of the imagination to call any kind of Protestantism mainline in France or Spain.⁵ Evangelical communities in the Anglo-Saxon meaning of the word would usually call themselves free or independent, even though evangelical Christians can be found in the mainline churches as well. In the Netherlands, however, evangelisch is a label for all orthodox Protestants who do not belong to mainline or Reformed Protestantism. In other words, they are equivalent to the free or independent churches in Germany and France. Sometimes they are called vrije groepen (free groups). However, many Reformed Christians in the Netherlands are also evangelicals, regardless of whether they belong to the largest mainline denomination, or to one of the smaller Calvinistic denominations in the country.⁶

In short, this means that evangelical in the sense described above roughly corresponds with the so-called Free Church sector in continental Europe. This sector comprises a wide variety of smaller churches, such as Baptists, Brethren, Methodists, Pentecostals, etcetera. Most of these churches have originated in the 19th or early 20th century. Next to this, there are sizable portions in the older churches who would have called themselves evangelicals had they lived in America or Britain. As far as church planting is concerned, immigrant churches and the free or independent churches in all these countries are the most vigorous multiplicators of congregations. However, in Europe, except for Britain, the historical Free Churches comprise only a small segment of the population. Nowhere do they have more than 5 percent of the population, and usually it is much less than that. For Americans and other non-European Christians it may be a surprise to realize that one of the dominant factors in their ecclesial landscape—evangelical Protestants who multiply churches—is very marginal in continental Europe. On the other hand, while church planting has increasingly become suspect among younger Anglo-Saxon evangelicals, it has become more popular outside its original setting in Europe. Even the German national Protestant Church and the Dutch mainline Protestant Church are now planting churches. Moreover, in many major European cities Christian immigrants make up large minorities or even the majority of Christians. It seems, therefore, that church planting is gradually escaping from its sectarian ghetto, and is becoming more normal in Europe.

Be that as it may, in this study I will normally use the word evangelical in the Anglo-Saxon sense, but I will use other vocabulary (such as Free Churches) when using evangelical would likely create confusion.

Gratitude

The roots of this work extend deep into my own biography, and they are widely ramified. There is no room here to recall all the people, conversations, and events that have, directly or indirectly, contributed to it. However, I want to thank especially my sisters and brothers in Via Nova. This Amsterdam church, planted in 2006, has been the spiritual home of our family since it was founded. Many of my ideas and intuitions with regard to church planting have been born in the context of this wonderful community. Working together with my fellow pastors Gert-Jan Roest and Siebrand Wierda has given me innumerable valuable insights. Moreover, apart from being a friend for so many years, Gert-Jan has read this manuscript with his usual accuracy and theological sensitivity, and as always he has provided helpful comments based on his lifelong experience as a missionary and a church planter in the European context.

Being involved in networks such as City to City Europe, Eurochurch.net, and Kerklab has helped me in many ways to write this book. I am glad also that several European church planters and missionary thinkers have been willing to read the manuscript, and provide feedback. In this regard I am very grateful to Leonardo DeChirico (Rome, Italy), Helge Hollerud (Lyngdal, Norway), Stuart Murray Williams (Bristol, United Kingdom), Martin Robinson (Birmingham, United Kingdom), and McTair Wall (Paris, France).

Finally, I want to thank my academic colleagues who have commented on this work in several stages of its completion. As this is a book that intends to meet scholarly standards, I have been greatly helped by their comments. Here I like to mention with special gratitude: Eddy van der Borght (Desmond Tutu Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Charles van Engen (Arthur F. Glasser Professor of Biblical Theology of Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary); Darrell Guder (Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary); Kees van der Kooi (Professor of Systematic Theology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); my colleagues from the Research Group ‘Reformed Traditions in Secular Europe’ of the Theological Universities of Apeldoorn and Kampen; Johannes Reimer (Professor of Missiology at University of South Africa and Lector at Theological Seminary Ewersbach); Martin Reppenhagen (Assistant Professor of Missiology at Greifswald University); and Sake Stoppels (Assistant Professor of Church Development at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam).

Publication of this book has been made possible by the Center for Evangelical and Reformation Theology.

1. Some European examples: Johan Lukasse, Churches with Roots: Planting Churches in Post-Christian Europe (Oxford: Monarch Books, 1990) (translated from Dutch); Stuart Murray, Planting Churches: A Framework for Practitioners (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008); Michael Moynagh, Church for Every Context: An Introduction to Theology and Practice (London: SCM Press, 2012), esp. pp. 197-447; Dietrich Schindler, The Jesus Model: Planting Churches the Jesus Way (Carlisle: Piquant, 2013) (translated from German).

2. The term secularization can mean different things. For an exploration, see Stefan Paas, Post-Christian, Post-Christendom, and Post-modern Europe: Towards the Interaction of Missiology and the Social Sciences, Mission Studies 28, no. 1 (2011): 3-25.

3. For some recent data (1990-2012) with regard to monthly church attendance among post-war generations (born between 1950 and 1980) in twenty-four European countries, see Marion Burkimsher, Is Religious Attendance Bottoming Out? An Examination of Current Trends Across Europe, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53, no. 2 (2014): 432-45. In the most secular countries, with monthly youth attendance less than 10 percent, church attendance remains stable or has even been increasing slightly here and there (Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, France, Belgium, Czech Republic). The same is true for somewhat more religious countries, with monthly youth attendance in the range of 10-20 percent (Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Russia). See also Eric Kaufmann et al., The End of Secularization in Europe? A Socio-Demographic Perspective, Sociology of Religion 73, no. 1 (2011): 69-91, who found that weekly attendance trends in ten Western European nations are levelling out around 5 percent church attendance.

4. For the sake of clarity I leave out those (American) evangelical denominations who trace their origins back to European (often German) immigrants. Here, evangelical is usually a translation of German evangelisch (Protestant). See, for example, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

5. With the recent establishment of the Conseil National des Évangeliques de France (2010) and the fusion of Reformed and Lutheran churches in the Église Protestante Unie de France (2013), the word évangelique seems to have assumed the more specific, Anglo-Saxon meaning of evangelical in France.

6. In some languages neologisms have been coined to translate evangelical, such as evangelikal in German or evangelicaal in Dutch.

CHAPTER 1

Church Planting and Its Reasons

The language of church planting has deep roots in the New Testament. Also the literature of the early church is rich with biblically inspired descriptions of planting and sowing in the context of mission and church formation. Even though, as far as I know, the actual term church planting (plantatio ecclesiae) is not found before the Middle Ages, this kind of language apparently has a venerable missiological pedigree. This is not the same, however, as saying that all contemporary practices of church planting rest on a solid biblical and historical foundation. When we use the same words as our theological ancestors, it does not necessarily mean that we do the same things. In this chapter I attempt to show that the modern evangelical discourse of missionary church planting maintains the language of planting, but is in fact a mutation (or, rather, a series of mutations) of an older approach. After an introduction of the terminology I will first describe this classic model by giving voice to some of its representatives. Second, I will trace the changes this older paradigm has undergone through the hands of modern evangelicals. The present chapter ends with a presentation of the most important motives behind church planting in Europe, motives that will be discussed in the remainder of this book.

1.1.  The Roots of Church Planting

In evangelical missionary literature it is widely affirmed that church planting is biblical. This is true to the extent that the New Testament mentions examples of new community formation by the apostles. If anything, the practice of church planting seems duly supported by biblical evidence.¹ Therefore it may come as a surprise that the actual phrase church planting does not occur in the New Testament. This absence may be more logical, however, than it appears at first sight. After all, the most natural interpretation of the phrase church planting is to take church as the object of planting. In other words, the use of this phrase assumes that we have a recognizable concept of church in the first place. There must be something about church that precedes the planting process, something universal and transcultural that can be identified, and subsequently planted or transplanted in new areas. This may explain why we find references in the New Testament to the word of the gospel or the kingdom of God being sown or planted, but not to church planting. Surely, the New Testament contains many traces of a beginning awareness of the universality and interconnectedness of the Christian movement (cf. Eph. 4:4-6).² Elements expressing transculturality and