Our bishops are meeting, and they’ve talked about the importance of starting new churches. They describe their desire to ramp up the church planting efforts from 75 new churches a year to 365 churches a year.
“The bishops not only envision planting at least one new church every day outside the United States, where there is significant membership growth, but also starting a new church every day in the United States, where the membership has declined for 40 years, [Bishop Lindsey Davis] said.”
I have only been in the UMC as a probationary elder for about a year and a half, and I’m already exhausted from all the talking. I’ve heard so much about starting new churches, but I have seen very little done to actually start new churches. I know it takes money; I know it’s complicated. Yet still, I want to say just do it already!