Who is a Church Planter?

Question: By way of definition: Who is a church planter?

Answer 1: Everyone is called to plant the gospel and help to create new communities of believers.  (btw – this is the work of making disciples that Jesus talks about in the Great Commission – Matthew 28:19-20).  In a very real sense church planting is the ministry of everyone who takes the call to reach all people for Christ and the call to live on mission seriously.

Answer 2: There are also people who have a special vocation as church planting missionaries.  These people can also be rightly called church planters and may be vocational missionaries, bi-vocational missionaries, or avocational missionaries.  These people pioneer the spread of the gospel among unreached and underserved people and who equip and release others to preach the gospel and plant the church.

Answer 3: There are also people who are have a special vocation as church planting pastors.  These are people who can also rightly be called church planters.  These pastors start new churches and new branches of the church in areas where the gospel has already spread significantly through an area or population.  The continuing spread of the gospel, the multiplication of the church in many generations and multiple gospel movements, and the renewal of the established church depends upon these pastoral church planters.

Conclusion:  Everyone should be planting the church in one way or another. Through our prayers, gifts, participation and witness.  Some people should be sent to the many groups of people who have little or no access to the gospel in order to do the initial “homesteading” clearing and plowing and preparing new fields for planting, and many should be sent out to continually start, strengthen and multiply the church so that all generations will know THE Planter and Harvester; the Lord Jesus Christ.