Church Planting and Baggage

Some churches are intentionally begun with a core group of believers with a sending church's blessing. Other churches are planted where there are not many believers to start with and will usually take longer to get off the ground and reach a level of sustainability. It's a catch-22 because it is a blessing to have mature believers partner with you to plant a church, to serve, to give, to love those who come. But they often carry church background baggage that cannot be imposed on a new church plant. You do not want to hear, "We never did it this way at our old church!"

We have been blessed by a few families and individuals who have sensed God's calling to help plant an urban church. We are thrilled that some Christians have purposely moved into or near Philadelphia to help plant churches. We try to lay out the vision carefully so that what is really baggage is identified and made a non-issue. We all have baggage but it's knowing how to deal with it that makes the difference.

For example, if someone comes from a traditional church where only hymns are sung, how will they respond to contemporary music, to clapping, or to hand-raising? In our case it's a blend of traditional/contemporary music. But if people think it's evil or worldly or whatever to use guitars or drums in worship, and they can't get over that, then it might be better for them not to work with the church plant.

Yet in our experience we have seen Christians who have come from churches with traditional-only music learn to appreciate and to worship with different or blended music styles. At the same time we believe strongly that we would do a disservice to a new generation of Christians if they were not exposed to the great hymns of the faith. We can move effortlessly and joyfully from Joachim Neander's 1680 "Praise Ye the Lord the Almighty" to  "Praise Him" by David Crowder or Hillsong's "The Stand."  Timeless hymns and timely praise meet in honor of the One who is worthy.