The True Goal of Church Planting

Sulad Jhun Cardeinte

What is the true goal of church planting? How do some missionaries view church planting? How does it affect our mission? “The church is God's appointed agency for the salvation of men. It was organized for service, and its mission is to carry the gospel to the world. From the beginning it has been God's plan that through His church shall be reflected to the world His fullness and His sufficiency. The members of the church, those whom He has called out of darkness into His marvelous light, are to show forth His glory. The church is the repository of the riches of the grace of Christ; and through the church will eventually be made manifest, even to "the principalities and powers in heavenly places," the final and full display of the love of God. Ephesians 3:10. AA 9
So what is the goal of church planting? If you think that gathering lot of worshippers then you miss the true goal of church planting. We can answer the question by seriously answering this question: How do we measure success in church planting? Is a missionary successful because the church planted by the missionary was able to establish another church? Maybe many would say yes. But other denominations can do this. I’m holding the belief that only the true church has the true goal of church planting.
Many missionaries claimed they were successful in the church planting since they where able to gather many members and they were able to branch out another church, where in fact the reality was that they just have enough funds to make another branch. And the scary thing is that the spirit of selfishness and division is crippling inside the church they planted. Did Jesus declare he was successful after he gathered the crowd of followers and the 12 disciples following Him? (Mark 3: 7-19).
It is possible that many serve as church planting missionary but did not know the true goal of church planting. They have lot of strategies. They know how to emphasize the doctrine theologically. But they miss the true goal of church planting that is to plant churches that reflects the character of Jesus, a church that each member really unite to build up their character, a loving and faithful church, though their meeting place(building)is not nice. The primary goal of the church planting is to build the heart of people who will be willing to be counted as the son of God, who is willing to stand for the right no matter what their faith would bring them and are willing to say “all to Jesus I surrender.” Church planting is not necessarily mean putting up building or branching out another worship hall in other places, but establishing people who are faithful and committed worshippers of God. Who are willing and open for Holy Spirit’s use.
Is there any church like this in the world today? If a missionary can plant a spiritual church like this, then this church will naturally branch out of its own. It will not only branch out one or two churches but immeasurable that no human being can tell! One spiritual church is brighter than a thousand nominal churches.