A View on Missional Church Planting from the Far Outfield
My wife and I are linguists working to translate the Bible for a language group in Asia composed of a bit over half a million people, the vast majority of whom have never heard the name of Jesus. The region in which we live is so far off the beaten trail, I can guarantee that you’ve never heard of it and most North American travel agents would be have trouble making travel arrangements to come visit us. So you could say we’re coming from the far outfield.
We recently returned to the US for a study leave and settled for a few months in my wife’s hometown at the base of the Rocky Mountains. My wife did not grow up attending a local church, so we have not previously had a home church in her town. Not wanting to waste time church-hopping, we looked online for a local Reformed congregation and were surprised to find, in this town of 150,000 people, two Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) congregations, an Acts 29 Network church, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) congregation, an Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) congregation, and at least one Reformed Baptist congregation that participates in the Gospel Coalition, many of these literally within a few blocks of each other. In the next town over we found a congregation of the United Reformed Church (URC), another PCA congregation, and another EPC congregation. If we drive 15 more miles and we could attend a congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA), a different PCA, etc. In addition, this area has quite a few conservative churches not of Reformed background but which are proclaiming the inerrancy and authority of the Bible to the community, as well as dozens of college student ministries such as Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), Navigators, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), Cru, Baptist Student Union (BSU), International Students, Inc. (ISI), etc.
Our local prefecture in Asia has a population of four million, with only a single openly-publicized church and a dozen or so “house churches.” There are no local seminaries, Christian colleges or schools, no Christian bookstores, and no Christian radio stations.