# Prioritizing church-planting locales



## Pergamum (Apr 24, 2019)

It seems like common sense, but when strategizing where to plant churches, we should focus on those places where there are not a lot of churches. We should plant in the least-churched region we can find.

Ideally this would be unreached places overseas. But if the plant is to be in the US, we should be mindful of the current work and the current churches already established in any US city.

Here is a link of the most-churched cities in the US: https://www.businessinsider.com/cities-with-most-churches-2015-6/?IR=T

As an example, if we look at Dallas, Texas, there are 1,400 churches in that area and it is the #7th most concentrated area of churches per capita in the US. That is pretty astounding and is one of the the most churched areas in the whole world.

Surely there are some gospel-centered churches among the 1,400 established churches.

My assertion is that it should not, therefore, be controversial to insist that somebody can find a church mostly amenable to their particular doctrine in a region of 1,400 churches. When initiating new church plants, we should, therefore, look elsewhere. 

I believe this is a great area of need among the Reformed, to look truly at the most needy areas throughout the world and seek to plant churches there. In some areas of China and Asia, Christians of many different stripes are made to worship together due to a total lack of churches. Therefore, it is not a compromise if we meet together with folks possesing differing views on non-salvific issues such as music, baptism, or the Sabbath. We are doing what many Christians around the world must do.

I remember a few years back a very Reformed person trying to plant a church in a major US city and he described this city as "unreached" - but when I looked it up, there was about a hundred churches and over a dozen Prebyterian churches already within a 40 miles radius of that city. When pressed, this man labeled "unreached" those who didn't believe in Exclusive Psalmodry; apparently it was not a true church at all unless they only sang the Psalms and so he sought to plant a "real" church in the region. But I hope we can agree that "unreached" is not the right word to describe such a highly churched region.

Now, of course the holder of very particular doctrinal views might take issue with me and say I am downplaying doctrine. But from a perspective of merely being Christian and preaching the basic gospel, there is really no way to label most of our US cities as unreached. There is some kind of gospel witness within at least a 30 minute drive.

I believe we ought to prioritize church-planting and intentionally target the least-reached areas of the world. This entails not repeatedly planting in the same places over and over again.

Reactions: Like 3


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## KMK (Apr 24, 2019)

Thank you for all your hard work among the unreached of the word, Perg.


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