Visit with Jeremy Erb, church planter from The Table

Jeremy Erb came to speak to our class on Monday. In 2003, he planted The Table, an Acts 29 network church plant. The church is located in north Portland. Here's a couple thoughts from his presentation.

1. Too many church planters want to start the "anti-church."
He has talked with many planters who know what they don't want their church to be (examples: mega-church, dead church, etc.) but not enough that know what they want their church to be. It is essential to develop a biblical ecclesiology and build the church around that.

2. Church Planting is a discipleship strategy not just an evangelistic strategy.
This was the most thought-provoking element of his presentation for me. According to Barna, the most effective evangelism/discipleship size for a church is 250 people. Apparently this is because there is critical mass of people but not too big such that people can be lost. Thus, The Table has strategically chosen to plant churches every 200 people. They are currently launching their first local plant (about 20 miles away) and want to start another in 2008.
The underlying principles were the most interesting. A church must create these 3 things:
- NEW opportunities for people to hear the gospel -- both from the pulpit and from people in the church. They must hear it in language and see it in deeds.
- NEW opportunities to connect -- time and place for people to make friends and to live life together. Small groups, missional communities.
- NEW opportunities to serve -- create new ministries where people can give themselves to a ground-breaking effort so that people will live in faith.

-Derek