The congregational form of church government, on which they insisted, assumed a congregation of covenanted believers calling a pastor. Such a structure had no obvious place into which to fit mission preaching, an intentional approach to those outside the Christian faith” (33). Even the ministries of John Eliot and David Brainerd were reflections of a Christendom reality. They thought in terms of a pastoral, rather than an apostolic, approach.
We imitate what we know; we know what has been modeled before us.
If my ecclesiastical experiences were formed in Christendom’s epicenter and transported to the “New World,” then I am going to replicate such in the new territory. If this Sunday our church disbands, and on Monday departs for the colonies, then we will constitute our model afresh on new soil when we disembark.
Could it be there has been little-to-no-place for an apostolic approach to church planting in North America because we inherited (and modified) ministry models transported from Europe? Could it be we have had no room for an apostolic imagination because we inherited a pastoral one from a time when only the pastoral existed?
One does not have to look too far into posts, my videos, or books to find thoughts on the importance of an apostolic approach to church planting.
This article on apostolic church planting originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
