Church planting in Europe
Al
Barth at Co-Mission’s planting conference
I met Al Barth at the Acts 29 church planting summit back in 2009.
He’s a very intelligent and warm man. You get a lot of that from this
lecture. Lots of thoughtful and challenging advice on church planting.
As someone who prays and cares deeply about the gospel going out to
Europe, it was so exciting to hear these stories about mini-movements
in Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin.
Also a funny cross-cultural moment in question time: after telling the
most inspiring of the success stories during his lecture, a Brit then
asks:
- These are obviously remarkable, but we often see growth that is much slower.
And Al Barth admits that most of the church planting work they are
involved in is much smaller and slower. Many of their church plants,
even in NYC are more like 80-180 people, after 5 years. Nevertheless,
we still must stretch and aim higher and more boldly, resisting the
urge to pessimism and resignation.
