The importance of Church planting and using gifts

Imagine across the world, every believer using their God given gifting according to the fullness of the grace God has given them!

Everyone with their talents, using them to maximum effect. Whether they have 1 or 10 it doesn't matter. God purposed each believer to be part of something amazing, but also to contribute to make it better.

Take sermons as an example. Many church, even larger ones, have a few main preachers/teachers. They will cover most of the talks, so lets say 5 in the eldership cover 70% of the talks, so any other gifted people are left with the 30%. Some churches even operate with a much higher percentage with the main pastor doing 80% or more of the talks. Lets think, if you are in a church with 15 gifted teachers and pastors (that you know of), yet they can hardly ever actually operate in their gifts, it dampens gifts, causes frustration and can stifle growth. It is also situations like these, if left, can lead to dissensions and factions.

Now imagine this happening with every gift, every person.

Now, think of even bigger churches, with more gifted members, gifted in every areas not just preaching. 300? 400? 500+? Mega-churches?

Individual churches like to grow themselves, and to an extent this is important, God's church should experience growth. But when it ends up limiting and stifling gifting is it really painting a picture of what is taught in the New Testament as a good church.

What does it teach about gifting?

There are three key passages when looking at this the first two are:

1 Corinthians 12:7 'Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good' (NIV 2011)

Romans 12:3-8 teaches, like Corinthians above, encourages all people with gifts (and everyone has some according to the grace given them) to use them.

So basically, if someone has a gift, and fulfils other criteria (such as being mature and sound in the faith) then they should use their gifts for the building up and strengthening of the church. The bigger a church is, the more gifted people they will have, and the less likely these people will be able to be use their gifts to their fullest for the Kingdom.

One possible answer: church planting.

Would not the church grow faster, more effectively and with less frustration and division if we actually had hundreds of small gatherings and church plants where everyone has a chance to bring their gifting into full use?

If you have a highly gifted Bible teacher in the church who only teaches a couple of times a year to give the lead pastor a break, is that really what you think God had in mind in gifting that person?

If you have someone who is highly gifted in administration, is it reasonable to only give them the role of printing off adverts for the church's Christmas party?

What if you have 50 gifted worship leaders in the church? Are they just for you, or would it be better to send them out to churches with none? How often does each individual have an opportunity to use their gifts? I have been to churches where the worship time was using a CD player. If that is all you have, then that's great, but thinking about the bigger picture, is this how God intended it to be?

The image in 1 Corinthians of spiritual gifts is similar, in a larger congregation, how can many people get involved? It will become a few hand picked individuals, rather than the whole church coming together, discerning together any prophetic words (for example) and weighing them up according to God's word? If everyone gathered in one church, how could every utterance be weighed and measured properly if there were 20 gifted people?

Larger churches pull resources to fund larger venues and keep up appearances, what about dividing a church of 500 in one location in an area into 10 churches of 50 or 20 churches of 25 spread all over an area? How many people in the 500 get to bring their gifts for building the church up compared to how many in 20 groups of 25?

This would also make it easier to outreach to the local area, making it easier for people to travel as there are more options. And, as someone who has worked with people with learning difficulties/differences, smaller numbers is very often better for them as larger groups can often be overwhelming. Rather than 20% of the people doing 80% of the work, you could have 80% of the people actually doing even more work, fulfilling the use of the gifting God has given them.

Church plants would empower a much higher number of believers to really bring their gifts to the table for Kingdom work, and, I believe, this would empower the church as a whole to impact their communities in a greater way, as the third scripture in Ephesians 4v16 states:

'From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work'.

Notice the words 'Every supporting ligament' and 'as each part does its work'

It does not say:

-only a few ligaments and

-as some parts do their work

Consider, discuss, be empowered. Church planting and a vision for growth could enable the whole body to actually do its work, according to the gifting and faith God has given.

Imagine such a church.