9 Quick Facts on Why Church Planting is Important

I have found that being a church planter is lonely. It is particularly lonely in the area of passion. It seems few people share my enthusiasm about church planting. What makes it even harder is that I often find people within the Christian community who do not even value starting new churches. I often get a response like, "There's enough churches!" or, "We should spend our efforts revitalizing old churches." I think the divide comes from not understanding the seriousness of the need, so to help bridge the divide I thought I would share just a few statistics that shine light on the need for new churches.

1. New Churches & Denominational Growth
"Studies show that if a denomination wishes to reach more people, the number of new churches it begins each year must equal at least 3% of the denominations existing churches. Based on this formula, mainline denominations are failing to plant enough churches to offset their decline.” -Bill Easum

2. New Churches & Evangelism
"All (growing) denominations surveyed placed church planting as a very important, if not the number one, strategy for evangelism...The fact is, starting a new ethnic congregation or focusing on a particular generation in a new start is much easier than trying to change the culture of an established congregation.” -Survey of the Reformed Church in America on Growing denominations.

3. New Churches & Evangelsim
"On a per-captita basis, new churches win more people to Christ than established churches. Bruce Mcnichol explained the findings of his research in Interest magazine:

• Churches under 3 years of age win an average of 10 people to Christ per year for every 100 church members.

• Churches 3-15 years of age win an average of 5 people per year for every 100 church members.
  
• Churches over 15 years of age win an average of 3 people per year for every 100 church members."

4. New Churches & Conversion Growth
And with #3 in mind, Alton Garrison sites in the Spring 2008 Enrichment Journal, "Nearly half of all churches in the United States did not add one new person through genuine conversion in 2007."

5. The National Church-t0-People Ratio Decline
The North American Mission Board recently recalculated the church-to-population ratio based on statistics from the U.S. Census.

• In 1900, there were 28 churches for every 10,000 Americans.
  
• In 1950, there were 17 churches for every 10,000 Americans.
  
• In 2000, there were 12 churches for every 10,000 Americans.
  
• In 2004, there were 11 churches for every 10,000 Americans.

6. The American Mission Field

• There are 120 million secular undiscipled people in the United States.
  
• The U.S. Is the largest mission field in the Western Hemisphere.
• The U.S. Is the fifth largest mission field on earth.
  

-George Hunter “The Rationale for a Culturally Relevant Worship Service,” Journal of the American Society of Church Growth, Worship an Growth 7.

7. The Decline of American Churches

• 80-85% of American churches are on the downside of the church life cycle.

• 3,500-4,000 churches close each year.

• 72 churches close each week.

-Win Arn, “Planting Growing Churches.”

8. The Deline of American Christianity

• The percentage of Christians in the U.S. Population dropped 9 percent from 1990 to 2001.
  
• The number of unchurched has almost doubled from 1991 to 2004.

-Win Arn, “Planting Growing Churches.”

9. New Church Success Rate
Even with the dire need for new churches, simply starting one is not a guarantee for long term success. “99 percent of church plants survive the first year, 92 percent the second year, 81 percent the third year, and 68 percent the fourth year.” -North American Mission Board

*Facts: 1-3, and 5-8 are from Ed Stetzer's book "Planting Missional Churches."

These are just of few of the reasons why I feel the need is so strong to plant new churches in America. It does give me hope that more and more churches are popping up around the country, and many denominations are becoming increasingly aggressive toward church planting. In some ways it almost feels like a trend for young Christian ministers, but I pray this is not a short lived trend but instead a valid church movement which sparks a Great Awakening.