In this book Stefan Paas offers thoughtful analysis of reasons and motives for missionary church planting in Europe, and he explores successful and unsuccessful strategies in that post-Christian secularized context.
Drawing in part on his own involvement with planting two churches in the Netherlands, Paas explores confessional motives, growth motives, and innovation motives for church planting in Europe, tracing them back to different traditions and reflecting on them from theological and empirical perspectives. He presents examples from the European context and offers sound advice for improving existing missional practices. Paas also draws out lessons for North America in a chapter coauthored with Darrell Guder and John Franke. Finally, Paas weaves together the various threads in the book with a theological defense of church planting.
Presenting new research as it does, this critical missiological perspective will add significantly to a fuller understanding of church planting in our contemporary context.
Table of Contents
- The roots of Church planting
- The classic paradigm: a three stage process
- Modern evangelical paradigm: Church planting as an instrument of evanglism
- Late modern evangelical paradigm: Church planting as innovation
- Three motives behind Church planting in Europe
- Mission and Confession
- Terminology
- Christendom divided
- Historical examples of confessional church planting in Europe
- Missional Reflections
- Defining Growth
- The missiological framework
- The logic of Church growth theory
- Evaluating religious marketing theory on three levels
- Empirical evidence
- Planting new churches
- Crisis and renewal
- Complexity of task
- Structures of expectation
- Three biotopes of renewal
- Church planting as an instrument of renewal
- Justification of church planting
- Biblical arguments for church planting in Europe
- Church planting a Theo-logical consequence
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