Different types of church plants I

Church planting can take a range of forms. There is no one 'right way' do do church planting, but a range of ways depending on your context, your gifts, your ministry philosophy and the opportunties that the Lord opens up. Here are a few

1. Re-deployment
Phillip Jensen recently spoke about starting new services within an existing church as a form of church planting where we re-deploy existing members in order to do evangelism. Starting a new service, perhaps on a Sunday evening, or mid-week is a common method of reaching out to a new group of people, without rocking the boat too much.

Pros
This approach can hold the difficult tension between homogenous services (Chinese Church, uni church) and diverse church community. It also saves a lot of resources, because the different meetings will naturally share staff, administration and possible venues.

Cons
Because this approach is safe, it may not actually lead to re-deployment but merely re-arrangement. We start a new meeting, but not actual evangelism is done. You can start a new meeting without having to ask hard questions about your strategy and approach and without having to really count the cost for the sake of the gospel.