Churches Planting Churches, Christ’s Emptying

In the Athenian church, there were being raised up elders, evangelists, prophets, and so on. One of the signs of a healthy local church is that it is raising up others to preach, to become pastors, and to plant churches. As God’s people, we must be committed to this. First, the Gospel does not place a spotlight on us. It is glory for God. God calls many people to pastor, not only one. We honor God by raising up pastors who labor in the word and who teach the word. It seems, then, that we do not honor God when we are not raising up teaching pastors or when we have placed the spotlight on a single pastor.

At Grace, we are accomplishing something bigger than ourselves as we have already started preparing to do something greater than our own local congregation. Here is a word from James Knapp, one of the men I get to mentor, and one of the men who will hopefully pastor and teach at Grace’s first new campus/church plant.