What is failure?

I have just been reading an article in this months Evangelicals Now reviewing a book on church planting. It contained within it the scary statistic that 3 in 5 church plants fail.

But there was no definition of what it meant to fail as a church plant. For example would the Ephesian Church be a failed church plant because it ceased to exist? Is it failure to last 5 years? Is a church plant only successful if it becomes self sustaining and financially independent?

It made me think about why we plant churches - we plant churches to see the lost saved, discipled and reach maturity and thus complete the race. So when does a church fail? I think there are a number of ways that a church plant can fail. We fail when we do not preach the gospel or teach the Bible, we fail when we do not seek the lost, we fail when we do not disciple those who come into our church families.

This means that in terms of 'success' or 'failure', for want of better terms, a church plant that lasts only 12 months but sees the lost saved and then at its closure channelled into other churches where they go on and grow can be more 'successful' than an established church which lasts for years but never reaches out with the gospel or sees believers mature in the faith.

Church planting is about a gospel response to a gospel need. In Britain that gospel need is great but so is resistance to the message, so are misunderstandings about the Bible, God, Christianity and the gospel. This means that gospel work, establishing and planting churches is hard work!!! It takes a long time to build relationships, it takes a long time to demolish barriers, it takes a long time to correct faulty thinking and misunderstanding, it takes a long term commitment to establish that you as a body of God's people - the church - love the people and the area.

Church Planting is a long term commitment to hard work but it is worth it to see someone won for the gospel.