If you live in or near Quincy, you may travel through the city and think, “Do we really need another church?”
But the reality is that Quincy is full of large, historic church buildings, many of which are mostly empty on Sundays. Churches centered on the gospel[1], informed by the Scriptures, lovingly seeking the healing and flourishing of a city in constant change, are always needed.
According to a recent, thorough report on the American Church, church planting in the US will need to double to triple from current rates to address population growth and anticipated church closures of older congregations.[2]
The advantages of starting a new church, then, are as follows:
1. New churches are (statistically) more effective at reaching new people
Studies confirm that the average new church gains one third to two thirds of its new members from the ranks of people who were not attending any worshipping body, while churches over ten to fifteen years of age gain 80-90 percent of new members by transfer from other congregations. The average new congregation, then, will bring new people into the life of the body of Christ at six-eight times the rate of an older congregation of the same size.[3]
One of the reasons many older churches die out over time is because they have long operated with a mindset that growth would happen based only on new people showing up.[4] New churches are energized to live on a mission to love and serve their neighbors, desiring to share what Jesus Christ has done in our lives, not through coercion or manipulation, but in love.
New churches have the opportunity to begin afresh, centered not a particular set of traditions (not having to worry about “the way we’ve always done things”), but centered on the gospel. (Like DNA)
2. New churches are more in touch with changing demographics
We seek to be a church that breaks down the barriers that divide humans, so that people look at our church and wonder what could bring us all together. The answer is that nothing but a shared identity in Christ functions as our most fundamental identity.[5]
3. New churches are more effective at reaching young people
The next 30 years will represent the largest missions opportunity in the history of this country, with 35 million young people expected to leave the Church.[6] Because of reasons 1 and 2 above, new churches are statistically more equipped to respond to meet the needs of young people.
Why Quincy?
Need: The Boston area is less churched than any other major city in the U.S., especially amongst Protestants who believe the historic creeds of Christianity.[7] Quincy is no exception to this. Our deep desire is that the good news of Jesus Christ will bring healing, hope and meaning to lives marred by brokenness, hopelessness and meaninglessness. There are also relatively few churches in Quincy that have effectively brought different peoples together to worship Christ.
Diversity: Quincy is multi-generational, and both ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. Many of the different peoples in Quincy exist side by side, but with little interaction. It is God’s mission (see Ephesians 2:13-16, Revelation 7:9-12), and therefore our prayer, to engage all of the peoples of Quincy with the hope of the gospel, which unites the peoples in the peace of Christ. We desire to pursue a multi-generational, multi-ethnic and multi-socioeconomic congregation for the good of Quincy and the glory of God.
Opportunity: From the beginning, this endeavor has been met with welcome and excitement from other ministry leaders in Quincy, from pastors of like-minded churches and/or pastors worshipping in other languages. We believe in a spirit of collaboration , partnering in mutually beneficial areas of ministry, so that in working together, we might love and serve a broader scope of Quincy than any church or ministry could on its own.
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[1] The good news that Jesus Christ has given everything so that flawed and sinful people might be completely loved and embraced by God. (Romans 5:8)
[2] “The Great Opportunity: The American Church in 2050” by Pinetops Foundation, 10.
[3] Tim Keller, Center Church, 359.
[4] See Tim Keller’s lecture, “A Missionary Encounter with a Post-Christendom Society,” at The Gospel and Our Cities conference, Chicago, October 20, 2018.
[5] “The Church’s task is neither to destroy nor maintain ethnic identities but to replace them with a new identity in Christ that is more foundational than earthly identities” (Manuel Ortiz, One New People, 130) We could add “political identities” to this quotation as well.
“The multi-ethnic church is God shaking his fist in the face of America’s historic sin, and saying ‘We will not be bound by this sin, for greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world’ (1 John 4:4).” Bryan Loritts, speaking at The Gospel and Our Cities, Redeemer City to City conference, Chicago, October 2018.
[6] “Great Opportunity,” 8-9.
[7] Per the 2000 U.S. Census, in “Boston Church Planting Overview,” compiled by the CTK Church Planting Center.