by Steve Cordle

There are over 350,000 churches in the United States – that’s enough right? Wrong.

It’s not enough to reach our nation. Church attendance in the U.S. over the last decade dropped more than 15%. Over 180 million Americans do not have a vital church connection. Less than 5% of churches are growing through reaching the unchurched.

Peter Wagner is famous for saying “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches. (“Church Planting For a Greater Harvest,” Page 7.) Simply put, new churches reach more new people than existing churches do.

The cell-based church sees multiplication of cells as a natural result of fulfilling our mission to evangelize and disciple people. Just as a healthy cell will grow and multiply, a healthy church should multiply too. If we are developing leaders who know how to reach others, then we can challenge them to multiply cells that can become a new church.

Is it easy? Surely not. Is it vital? Absolutely.

How have you been casting the vision to your leaders to consider getting equipped to plant a church?

Steve