When I began working with Ed Stetzer, one of the first things that I did was approach him about revising Planting Missional Churches. It has been such a helpful book to tens of thousands of people around the world, but much of the stories and content needed to be refreshed. Furthermore, there were new questions and issues that planters and multipliers were facing, like multisite, residencies, multi-ethnic churches, theological education, and the difference between denominations and networks.
So we decided to revisit the book, and in doing so, we ended up changing over 50 percent of the content. The stories, content, and models are different in each chapter. We also wrote five new chapters, completely reorganized the book, and integrated the research we conducted in the new State of Church Planting study, a research partnership of over a dozen denominations on church planting in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
In addition to rewriting the content in the existing chapters, we wrote five new ones from scratch:
- Chapter 8: Multiethnic or Monoethnic Churches
- Chapter 9: Multisite Planting
- Chapter 27: Residencies and the Future of Theological Education
- Chapter 28: Denominations and Networks
- Chapter 30: Spiritual Leadership
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the second edition:
- “Missional means being a missionary without ever leaving your city.”
- “Success is measured in multiplication of churches and quality of disciples.”
- “You cannot love a city if you do not know a city.”
- “Everywhere Christians have gone to share the gospel, churches were formed.”
- “Churches of all sizes and ages can take part in church planting.”
Your ultimate calling is not to plant a church; it’s a calling to come to Jesus Himself.
Who Should Read This Book?
- If you’re considering church planting, the first section in this book will give you a good sense as to what it takes to plant a church.
- If you are already planting, this book will provide you and your team with different leadership and church models to consider, as well as a plethora of systems to implement in your church so that you can move towards multiplication.
- If you are pastoring and considering multiplying, this book will serve as a tool to help raise up future church planters.
- If you teach and train others how to plant, this book can function as a guide for your curriculum.
Our hope is that the second edition of Planting Missional Churches would be a beneficial resource wherever you are on your multiplication journey–whether you’re considering planting, are in the journey of planting, or are training others to plant churches that plant churches that plant churches.
Planting Missional Churches is part of the Exponential Series, a series of books dedicated to unleashing the multiplication potential in churches. You can read more about the book here, or read the first three chapters of the book free here.
