Planting Churches Among the City's Poor - Volume 2

402 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 2

Twenty Five Years of Urban Church Planting Among the Poor: A Report 14

IV.

World Impact Church Planting Environmental Assessment A. General 1.

World. The Church is rapidly losing its privileged place in the West’s post-Christendom context. This change of position presents both crisis and opportunity. Church Planting. In the last twenty years the Holy Spirit has raised up an increased emphasis on church plants and church plant movements. The larger movement toward church planting has resulted in many new organizations ( Launch ), associations (LA-CPM, Association of Related Churches, etc.) and conferences (Verge, Exponential, African American Church Planting Initiative, etc.) which focus on church planting. More than twenty organizations, conferences and training programs in church planting have begun during the last twenty years.

2.

B.

World Impact Strengths 1.

TUMI. A movement of movements with thousands of urban leaders being trained for mission and ministry through the local church

2.

Church Planting President with cultural competence

3.

Highly disciplined and committed staff

4.

Large support base and well respected forty year history

C.

Weaknesses (Icebergs below surface) 1. Identity Confusion a)

Lack of clarity across our ministry on core identity. Are we first a Religious Missionary Order (form of the church) or first a non profit (like other associations above)? Current policies reflect state of confusion and competing understandings of mission’s core identity. Lack of clarity across our ministry on culture issues. Is WI first a cross-cultural missions organization or first a missional order working among the poor? 4

b)

2.

Communication and Competency Issues

4 I am thinking here to some of the issues discussed in Leroy Barber and Velma Maia Thomas, Red, Brown, Yellow, Black, White—Who’s More Precious In God’s Sight?: A Call for Diversity in Christian Missions and Ministry (New York: Jericho Books, 2014).