By Ken Davis
Church planting is the most effective evangelistic strategy for reaching the unchurched and unsaved. Many missiologists contend it’s the best way to fulfill the Great Commission and to make disciples.
Among the many ways churches can be planted, intentionally parenting a daughter church is possibly the best approach. In fact, experience has shown that it is often far easier to plant a new church than to revitalize a dying one.
In the past, Bible-believing Baptists have often supported church-planting missionaries sent out under sound mission agencies, both internationally and domestically. Agency planters have been greatly used of God, particularly to plant in frontier areas where there is no nearby gospel-centered church. However, in recent years we’ve neglected what probably is the most effective method for launching new churches: churches directly birthing daughter churches, using their own resources and manpower. Sending a missionary church starter to plant for us is a more indirect approach and can rob the local church of the joy of raising up its own posterity.
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