Given these outcomes, here are a few takeaways to consider:
- If a church or pastor/leader has a conviction around gospel saturation, then by necessity that church or pastor will have a better understanding of the need for collaboration since it is impossible for one congregation to get the job done in a city. It is the job of the whole church in that city.
- When a church or pastor/leader has a shared conviction around gospel saturation, the likelihood of that church or pastor doing something to reduce lostness (like planting churches) significantly increases compared to those who may not share those convictions.
- Those churches that are actively collaborating with other churches and pastors actually produce more church plants compared to those churches and pastors who do not collaborate with the greater Body of Christ.
- Collaboration may well be a missing ingredient in fueling church planting, with an eye on the greater goal of gospel saturation in a specific geography.
This isn’t just theory—we have seen the realities of this play out on the ground in places like the Buffalo, NY region. After embracing these shared convictions and acting on them for many years, we were able to measure the outcomes in our region. Over a 10-year window, we saw the Church of Western New York grow by 28%. Interestingly, of that 28% growth, 57% of it was from collaborative church planting where those church plants averaged a 10% conversion growth rate.
Collaboration is at the heart of gospel saturation, and we are convinced it is one of the missing ingredients in church planting.
