Five Churches that Shouldn’t Reproduce

There is legitimate reason to caution against a universal plea toward blind reproduction.

There is a growing awakening to the need of a multiplying church movement within North America, as the best—and likely only—means to bring the gospel within proximity to those who desperately long for good news.

As an advocate of this for many years, both as a church planter and as a pastor of a multiplying church, I am in complete agreement with this idea. I cannot envision a future where the gospel is accessible to all without the permeation of community after community with an Acts-esque behaving church.

But I would caution against a universal plea toward blind reproduction. In the clarion call to church planting, I have observed the launching of new congregations that have not necessarily been, from my limited perspective, a kingdom win.

There are some church ideas that, when are reproduced, actually seem to become more of a missionary liability than a gospel-engaging asset. Let me suggest five churches that, for the sake of the kingdom, should never be reproduced or exported. Please. Read More

Most of the churches planted by the Anglo-Catholic traditionalists who left the Episcopal Church in the 1970s over prayer book revision and women's ordination have not flourished. Those which survive for a large part are struggling. The Anglo-Catholic traditionalists put ecclesial preferences before missional engagement. Their church ideas proved a liability on the North American mission field. Their story is a cautionary tale for the New Tractarians who, like them, are wed to a particular ecclesial praxis.