Here is a book that needed to be written on church planting in Europe. The more we can see the contexts for starting new churches, the more we will be more effective in church planting and multiplication.
In the introduction, Van de Poll comments on the different types of church planting and points out that pioneer planting is necessary among some “unreached” peoples in Europe and is called “replacement planting, has unfortunately become a necessity in Europe, and increasingly so”(3). This reviewer is convinced of this after 29 years of planting new churches in France. In some countries of Europe where the growth of evangelicals is 0% or even worse, church planting or, in some cases, church renewal is the only way to truly evangelize effectively.
In Part I, three different authors deal with the following: the biblical criteria for church planting, the importance of prayer in church planting, and the need to create a church planting movement. Dietrich Schindler, the author of the third chapter, builds church multiplication upon eight qualities of Christ which produce healthy multiplying churches.
In Part II, entitled “Church in Europe,” eight chapters are given over to the questions of cultural relevance, context analysis, signs of hope, the role of Christianity, barriers and bridges for the Gospel, the kind of church needed for postmodern Europeans, multiculturalism, and church planting among Muslims. These various questions will be of help to those seeking to understand how best to plant relevant and healthy churches in Europe. Church planters in other contexts and other parts of the world should be able to learn from the questions asked, the discussion, and the possible solutions.
In Part III, the main idea is the church planters themselves. Here are the four chapters in this section:
• Missional Spirituality and Taking New Initiatives in Church Development
• How Can We Measure the Effectiveness of Church Planting?
• Creative Church Planting Involving Lay People
• Workable Ways to Start Healthy, Reproducing Churches.
These chapters deal with issues sometimes neglected in church planting studies. The chapter seeking to understand how to measure the effectiveness of church planting will be important to mission leaders as well as church planters.
The last chapter in this section is important to this reviewer since he has written extensively on the subject: “Help in Planting and Multiplying Healthy Churches.” It is one thing to plant a church that is healthy and another thing to plant a church that multiplies. This reviewer believes that the two go together.
In Part IV, three case studies are given for Belgium, Spain, and the Balkans. Church planters and missions working in these three areas could be helped in their ministry and how others relate to them.
A valuable aspect of this particular book is that it came from a symposium conducted in Belgium in July 2014, entitled “Mission in Europe: Developing New and Existing Churches Connected to Society” (ix). This symposium led to what was called “discussion highlights” where feedback was given by the participants. It is of help to see the various reactions of church planters to the ideas and practices of other church planters in Europe.
This book will be an invaluable resource for those working in Europe as well as to those considering church planting in Europe. This reviewer has twice taught a seminary course on ministry in European contexts. This type of book would be a crucial text for this kind of seminar.
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![Church Planting in Europe: Connecting to Society, Learning from Experience by [Evert Van de Poll, Joanne Appleton]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5196pzuEWRL._SY346_.jpg)
