3 Reasons to Plant in Highly-Churched Areas

North Pleasant Grove Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 

Calloway County, Kentucky, one of the Jackson Purchase's

numerous churches

In 2010, I co-planted a church with a few other men in the Wylie, Texas area outside of Dallas/Fort Worth. For the last two years, I’ve been part of a church that has planted churches in places like downtown Fort Worth. The question is often asked, “Why are you wasting your time planting a church in the Bible Belt?” This question was usually followed up with two common concerns:

1. There are already enough churches in DFW, and planting more will simply water down the congregations of existing area churches.
2. We need to revitalize all of the struggling churches first, and then worry about planting new ones.

While both critiques have validity, I would answer these concerns in a few ways. Read more

I live in a highly-churched area. Baptist, Church of Christ, Cumberland Presbyterian, Pentecostal, and United Methodist churches dot the countryside. Yet almost two-thirds of the population is unchurched. There is clearly a need for more churches.