Vatenoa| Ministries
| Modesty
| God and Faith
| Christian Parenting
How Slowing Down Speeds Up the Church
How Slowing Down Speeds Up the Church
by: Nathan Knight
The Speed of Church Planting
The kingdom of heaven is like a marathon runner. He gets better at running fast by running slower. Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, a two-time gold medalist and record holder, has a training regimen that may be described as “boring” or “monotonous.” He runs hours upon hours of low-intensity exercises which include running slower.1In this is a parable for church planting that demands we pay attention.
Concerning Conversations
What concerns me about the church planting conversation is how it seems to center on multiplication. Sometimes that has led to an advocacy of rapid multiplication due to the burden of wanting to reach lost people who are daily dying and going to hell.I share the desire for multiplication; we’ve planted and assisted in planting. I’d also welcome opportunities for that multiplication to come quickly. But I don’t welcome centering multiplication or rapidity. Imagine a family that wanted to center multiplying their family and doing so rapidly. Wouldn’t we have some serious questions? Most especially, how are the marriage and family that these many children would quickly enter into? What if it’s unhealthy? They’d only be welcoming children into an unhealthy environment, which would serve long-term pain.Likewise, if we center multiplication and/or rapid multiplication, we don’t center Christ and the health of his people. The whole of the Christian life is first loving God and second loving your neighbor (Matt. 22:34–40). Reverse the emphasis of this and you get what we have so much of in America: dead or dying churches.We don’t just need more churches to keep up with population growth; we need the right churches centered on the excellencies of Christ and a desire to obey all that he teaches for his glory and our neighbor’s good.Read More – Go to SourceNathan Knight is the author of Planting by Pastoring: A Vision for Starting a Healthy Church.Need a prayer? Prayer RequestsPlease subscribe to our main Ministries daily scripture study – Koa Sinag MinistriesHave a Testimony of how God has changed or intervened in your life? Tell us your story! Give God Praise!Need some inspiration? Check out others Testimonies!Have you checked out our online store? We have a tonne of fascinating and colourful PDF books, toys, kids’ apparel, and much more, including complimentary PDFs for home schoolers!
Nathan Knight (MDiv, Southeastern Theological Seminary) is a pastor of Restoration Church and serves on the lead team for the Treasuring Christ Together church planting network. He and his wife, Andi, live in Washington, DC, with their two sons.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
