Contact: Jon Hirst, The Well, 719-362-5235, jhirst@dotheword.org
ORANGE COUNTY, Calif., March 10 /Christian Newswire/ -- Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA recently concluded a conference where President of Lifeway Research, Ed Stetzer, appealed to attendees to believe in church planting. Stetzer shared about the importance of church planting as being central to societal transformation and worldwide evangelization. Bob Sears, a leader within the simple church movement and an elder at The Well, wants Christians to think more deeply about the subject, "Reaching the world for Jesus Christ and transforming our society will not be accomplished just because more churches pop up."
The conference, titled "Radicalis: For Radicals Only" took place from February 9-12, 2010 and also featured Rick Warren, Andy Stanley, Mark Driscoll, and Perry Noble as speakers. Stetzer provided statistics indicating that the membership to baptism ratio of new church plants was found to be 14 to 100 and is quoted as saying, "If you love Christ, you'll love his church. And if you'll love his church, you'll want to see more of them."
"I love the passion that [Stetzer] speaks with and I'm glad that he is calling on the Church to take risks in their obedience to God," says Sears, "But, and I think Ed would agree with me on this, more of the same is not going to fix the Church's problem. If the Church wants to reclaim her ability to transform society and evangelize the world, it is going to take more than that."
Sears is a leader with The Well, formerly a traditional Southern Baptist church that transitioned in 2005 to a network of home-based churches.
He continues, "It's not necessarily more churches that we need, but better, healthier churches -- churches where believers are being adequately equipped to follow Jesus, where they experience what it means to act like His Body, and where their gifts are valued, developed, and then employed in the world. Those kinds of churches have changed the world once and they can do it again.
The Well hosts 5-15 members at each of its seven locations on a weekly basis. Sears and others within the church post their experiences on a blog maintained by the church, www.leavethebuildingblog.com, with the purpose of interacting with individuals from traditional and house church backgrounds.
