{"id":9345,"date":"2017-01-11T07:45:52","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T23:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/jacksonwu\/?p=9345"},"modified":"2017-01-11T17:46:31","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T09:46:31","slug":"wasting-time-church-planting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jacksonwu\/2017\/01\/11\/wasting-time-church-planting\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you wasting time church planting?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Even Paul knew his labor in planting churches could be\u00a0a waste of time. If Paul felt this way, shouldn\u2019t we take notice and figure out how to avoid wasting our efforts?<\/p>\n

\"Public
Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To the Galatians, Paul wrote,<\/p>\n

\u201cI went up [to Jerusalem] because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.\u201d\u00a0(Gal 2:2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Upon seeing the false teaching present in the church, he concludes,<\/p>\n

\u201cI am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.\u201d (Gal 4:11)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paul urges the Philippians to \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201c[hold] fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.\u201d (Phil 2:16)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Knowing the affliction of the Thessalonians, Paul explains<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.\u201d (1 Thess 3:5)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Few people like talking about this reality. If we don\u2019t, however, we too could fall into the very trap Paul wanted to avoid.<\/p>\n

Brothers, Don\u2019t Waste Your Church Planting<\/span><\/h1>\n

In this month\u2019s EMQ<\/a>, Will Brooks\u2019 succinct article offers excellent advice for anyone who wants to see lasting fruit in their ministry. He easily could have followed John Piper\u2019s example<\/a> by titling his essay, \u201cBrothers, Don\u2019t Waste Your Church Planting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks first diagnoses the problem:<\/p>\n

Rightly loving and laboring to see the advance of the church into new areas, they define church health solely in terms of the church\u2019s ability to start new churches. Self-propagation, then, becomes the defining metric of church health. In reality, many other components should be included in a discussion of church health, and to be fair, most of those components are not easily quantifiable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then lists and explains five reasons why training in biblical interpretation should be an integral part of every missions strategy. Training in biblical interpretation\u2026<\/p>\n