Introduction
Have you noticed that there has been a bit of a pattern in this sermon series on our foundational values?
The first three weeks, we looked at God’s word, prayer and worship. All three focus on our upward relationship with God. That is deliberate, because our relationship with God is of first importance.
My mum always used to say, when I was about 5 years’ old and getting dressed for school; always start with the top button and work down. If you start in the middle, you’ll put the wrong button in the wrong buttonhole and have to undo it all and start all over again.”
Unless you start at the top, it all goes wrong. As Christians we have to put God at the top of our thinking, at the summit of our priorities. He is first. Everything else is subsidiary.
Next, we looked at things like belonging, community, discipleship and generosity. These are all about our relationships with each other. They are about how a church members interact with each other in a healthy way.
Only after looking up (how we relate to God) and looking in (how we get on with each other) did we start to look out (how we connect with the outside world) with values like serving and evangelism.
Next week, we’ll continue to look out when we focus on world mission but today, in this penultimate talk in the series, I’m going to speak about church planting.
Churches Get Born and Churches Die
Believe it or not, there was a time when there was no such thing as King’s Church Darlington. We came into being almost 30 years ago now as a church plant from Emmanuel Church in Durham.
An enthusiastic small team in the freshness of youth was commissioned and sent out from there to move to Darlington and bring to birth a brand new congregation in this town.
Over the last three decades, by the grace of God, it has gained strength to become what it is today.
Some of those founding team members are still here; they’ve seen a lot of blessing, no doubt many setbacks, and constant change, but we have never departed from these foundational values that we have been revisiting over the last few months.
At exactly the same time that King’s started Kathie and I were involved in planting a church in Paris. We planted two churches there in the end, and just before we came here, our last church sent out a team of about 20 people to plant in Stockton, so I do speak this morning with a little personal experience.
I was walking around a town on the south coast of England once when I came across a church and noticed the large black noticeboard outside. It said in gold letters Mount Zion Chapel.
And underneath were three words. What three words do you think they’d be most eager to communicate to curious passers-by?
Welcome to all? God loves you? Please come in? Jesus is Lord?
Believe me, I am not joking, of all the excellent options open to them from the rich and beautiful English language, the three words they went for on their noticeboard, were “Strict and Particular!”
It’s actually a theological term that refers to certain views on membership and communion. But I didn’t know that at the time and seeing Strict and Particular on that sign didn’t make me think, “This looks nice, let’s go in.”
Sometime later, out of interest, I googled that church. I found that it had since closed down, and been sold for demolition and redevelopment. It’s gone.
This church here, though it feels young and vibrant, (it does to me anyway) could one day become unhealthy and die.
There are decisions we could make, and a course of action we could embark on, drifting from our core values, that would lead to our decline and closure.
I hope that will never happen but the uncomfortable truth is that it could. The book of Revelation (in chapters 2 and 3) tells us that Jesus is absolutely prepared to shut down churches that abandon sound teaching and forsake their first love.
This series is about the things that make a church healthy, and therefore resistant to stagnation and decline.
The primacy of God’s word, Christ-centred worship, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, faith-filled prayer, authentic community, cheerful generosity, cringe-free evangelism and so on.
But the local church is a living organism and like any living thing, one of the key signs of health and maturity in a church is that it reproduces. It has offspring. It gives birth to new life. This is what church planting is.
The Book of Acts is the story of how pioneers (called apostles) planted new churches that in turn gave birth to daughter churches.
Antioch: a Church to Emulate
We’re going to look this morning at the experience of one particular church in the city of Antioch. Here’s what it says about how that church came into being and how it began to thrive.
Acts 11.19-30:
Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.
Then
Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him
to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and
taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at
Antioch.
During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.
So what we’re seeing here is a new church coming into being. Humanly speaking, it was planted almost by accident.
After Stephen was stoned to death in Acts 7, persecution broke out and many Christians had to leave Jerusalem, running for their lives.
It's natural that some of these believers would head for Antioch, even though it was about 300 miles away, because it was a large city, well over half a million people at that time. In fact, it was the 3rd city of the Roman Empire (only Alexandria and Rome itself were greater in size).
As these displaced believers fled with their families, naturally enough, conversations began. “You’re not from here, what are you doing in these parts?”
“Oh, we had to leave Jerusalem because people were trying to kill us.” “Kill you? Seriously? Wow, why was that?” “Well, it’s because of our faith. They’re trying to wipe us out.” “Oh? What religion is that then?”
And as they began to share their faith with people they met, others became Christians.
Raise your hand please if at least part of the reason you are here today is because of someone else you admired or who loved you one day introduced you to church? You see? That’s how this church in Antioch started to form and grow.
Acts 11 is a watershed moment. This is the first time anyone had come to faith in Jesus without knowing something of the Old Testament and the Jewish faith. These new Christians in Antioch are complete outsiders.
When we plant churches in Britain today, we are in exactly the same situation because increasingly people have no idea what Christianity is about.
A few years ago, Jon Soper from Exeter Network Church was doing a bit of research to try and find a venue for his new church plant. He found a really nice café that wasn’t open on Sundays so he arranged to meet the manager who, it’s fair to say, never much paid attention in R.E. at school.
Because when Jon described the vision of the church (student focus, contemporary worship, community, Bible teaching, ministry of the Holy Spirit, outreach to the poor), the guy said, “Is your religion one of those that slaughters live chickens?”
Jon thought for a moment and said, “Well no, not exactly, but we do drink the blood of our leader!” The guy said, “Wow, cool man! You can definitely come here.”
That church has since grown and God is doing great things there.
In Antioch too, it says (v21) that the Lord's hand was with them, (that’s wonderful, isn’t it? Do you feel that the Lord’s hand is with you?) A great number of people believe and turn to the Lord.
When the church started in Antioch there was a problem though. Nobody knew what to call them.
Up to this point, believers in Jesus were just considered as eccentric Jews. But in this new church, most of the believers were Gentiles. So the question arose, what should we call these people?
Verse 26 says that was, in fact, the locals who gave them the nickname ‘Christians.’
Some churches are named after what most distinguishes them. A group of charismatic believers in the 17th Century used to shake as the Holy Spirit fell on them so people called them Quakers. Another group of Christians sprung up in the 18th Century who were methodical about how they systematically shaped people as disciples so people called them Methodists.
Other churches are named after their founders. Lutherans are named after Martin Luther. Mennonites are named after Menno Simons. Calvinists are named after Jean Calvin.
As the believers in Antioch became a recognisable group, people will have asked them out of curiosity, “What’s your religion all about?” Christ.
“Which gods do you worship?” Just one; Christ. “Who’s your leader then?” Christ. “Yes, but who’s in charge?” Christ. “Sure, but who actually runs this church?” Christ.
It’s like that story of the little boy who learned by the age of 5 that the answer to every question he got asked in church is Jesus.
Until one day someone said, “Who can tell me what’s small and red with a big bushy tail and stores nuts for the winter? So he puts his hand up and says, “I know the answer must be Jesus, but I think it’s a squirrel!”
Hopefully, we’re called King’s because we are subjects of the King of kings. We don’t throw our weight around is if we own the place, we come under his authority, his rule and his reign.
What else do we notice about this church in Antioch? We see that, even though it’s a long way away from the nearest other local church, it’s not on its own.
In v22 the mother church in Jerusalem sends Barnabas the encourager to give them some support.
Then later in v26 Saul the Bible teacher comes down from Tarsus to give them some good, foundational grounding in God’s word.
There are so many non-Jews coming to faith in Christ with no knowledge of the Bible at all and they need a lot of teaching so it says for a whole year Saul and Barnabas met with the church and taught great numbers of people.
They also welcome prophetic ministry to speak into the life of the church. Verse 27. Prophets don’t so much as prepare sermons; as bring a direct word, a visual picture or some other new revelation from God.
The Bible says that “those who prophecy speak to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.” (1 Corinthians 14.3). And it says “Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good.” (1 Thessalonians 5.20).
Antioch was a church plant that welcomed prophetic input. This is why we value highly the ministry of the Holy Spirit here. In healthy churches people are encouraged to eagerly desire spiritual gifts.
What else do we see here?
We notice in v29 that they show their open handedness by sending Saul and Barnabas with some financial support to the impoverished churches in Judea, struggling with food inflation because of a severe famine.
We saw a few weeks ago that generosity is one of our foundational values as well, because God is a generous God.
I say all this because I want you to see that we didn’t just pluck these foundational values out of thin air. These are not random good ideas.
We find these values in Scripture as key characteristics of flourishing churches and we conclude from that that this is what God wants his church to look like.
At the beginning of Acts 13, God tells us a bit more about this Antioch church. What we find is this: the church is not content to be a large, thriving, growing community of believers. It has the ambition to take its gospel DNA and spread it around. Here’s what it says…
Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.
This explains why we’re part of an international network of churches called ChristCentral.
It means, amongst other things, that we support a church plant in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Sam and Abi who lead that work saw their first Sunday gathering in their new rented premises last month drawing about 50 people. From nothing, there are now 50 people meeting in that city to lift up the name of Jesus.
We also enjoy partnership with a young church in Brasov, Romania. They’ve come here and ministered to us. We’ve sent a team there to help them as best we can.
Ending
But, as I end, I want to say that beyond this, we have a bigger vision than just watering our patch. We want to emulate the church in Antioch by sending and planting ourselves.
Just as healthy cells multiply in a body, healthy churches reproduce life.
We have a vision that King’s will one day give away some of the blessings we enjoy here in the form of a church planting team to establish a daughter church somewhere else.
We’ve never done that before, and maybe it’s overdue, but it is an aspiration we have, and increasingly so.
In Antioch, interestingly, they give away the best they have. Not a couple of nobodies with no experience. In v3, they send out 40% of their leadership team, in one go. Two valued, key leaders; Saul and Barnabas. Men of stature.
We have yet to discern the when, the where and the who of our first church plant, but we do want to start asking God to speak to us about it, to raise up a future team and to lead us on that adventure when the time is right.
Let’s stand to pray…
Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 19 March 2023
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