Church Planting

By Dr. George Hill and Dr. Hazel Hill

Church Planting is God's plan for transformation. It is the greatest evangelistic strategy on planet earth. This book gives a number of powerful reasons why new churches must be planted; along with a variety of successful ways of planting them. It offers both instruction and inspiration on key foundational areas necessary for the planting of healthy growing churches. This book will challenge you to become a church planter and enter into the greatest adventure of your life!

Drs. George & Hazel Hill are founders of Victory Churches International (VCI). This apostolic Church planting movement was birthed in revival in 1997 in Western Canada. Since then, the movement has experienced explosive growth and now has church planting churches, Bible Colleges, orphanages, Christian schools, television and political initiatives in countries all over the world as well as many other creative ministries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. George Hill
• Release date: Jul 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9780974326597

Book preview

Church Planting

God’s Plan for Transformation

by

Drs. George and Hazel Hill

Published by

Victory International Publishing

Copyright © 2010 by Drs. George and Hazel Hill

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the authors.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Church Planting – God’s Plan For Transformation

Copyright © 2010 by Drs. George and Hazel Hill

ISBN: 978-0-9743265-9-7

Digital ISBN: 978-0-920567-56-2

Published by Victory International Publishing

Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Why Start New Churches?

Chapter 2: New Testament Church Plants

Chapter 3: Principles of New Testament Church Planting

Chapter 4: Kingdom Expansion Through Church Planting

Chapter 5: Different Types of Church Plants

Chapter 6: Apostolic Team Church Plant

Chapter 7: Accuracy, Going to the Right Place

Chapter 8: Breaking into the Community

Chapter 9: Turning the Crowd into a Congregation

Chapter 10: Finding the Right Pastor

Chapter 11: Bi-Vocational Ministers

Chapter 12: Creating a Church Climate That Attracts Leaders

Chapter 13: Characteristics of Unsuccessful Church Plants

Chapter 14: How and Why Victory Churches Were Formed

Chapter 15: A Church Planter’s Greatest Strengths

Chapter 16: The Church Planter’s Wife

Chapter 17: Pitfalls of Church Planting

Chapter 18: Are You a Church Planter?

Chapter 19: Apostolic from Root to Fruit

Appendix A: Planting a Church in the Philippines

Appendix B: Media Project Proposal

Appendix C: Marketing Your Vision; Funding a Church Plant; and Legal, Governmental and Financial Issues

Appendix D: Surprising Insights from the Unchurched

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

About the Book

Books by Drs. George & Hazel Hill

Introduction

A First Generational Pioneer Movement

Victory Churches is a first generational pioneer movement that is rapidly expanding all around the world. We are an apostolic, prophetic, Church planting/growth movement with a 20 to 25% average growth rate every year for the past thirty years.

Because of our rapid growth pattern, we have many more opportunities than we have trained, qualified people to take advantage of them. Therefore, a great deal of our attention must be on raising up tomorrow’s leaders today. We must build for the future or we will always be years behind.

We thank God for the past and all that has been accomplished through God’s grace and favor. Our past gives us tremendous hope for the future; because if God can do what He has done with the little He had to work with yesterday, imagine what He can do in the future with what we have now!

As we look to the future we can see a world full of opportunities for those who are totally committed to Christ and willing to serve. Jesus Himself has declared:

The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. (Matthew 9:37-38)

Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! (John 4:35)

It is harvest time!

Charles Finney said, Revival is no more miraculous than a crop of wheat. A great future doesn’t just happen anymore than a good garden just happens. If you are not thinking, planning and preparing for the future, you end up living in the past. The future belongs to those who are willing to invest in it.

Jesus spent three years building a team of 120 committed believers, who went on to change the history of the world after the birthing of the first Church in Jerusalem.

We must have a mindset of foresight. A prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished (Proverbs 22:3). We must think at least two years ahead, otherwise, we will always be in a crisis, survival, maintenance mode instead of an aggressive, possessing the land mode.

We as Victory Churches are known for being proactive rather than reactive. We, like the children of Issachar, have seen where things were going and have acted accordingly (1 Chronicles 12:32). To maintain this position, we must constantly be building for the future.

This means we must have foreknowledge, forethought, foresight, insight and a prophetic edge, together with a pioneer spirit.

We must train tomorrow’s leaders today

We must build tomorrow’s teams today

We must write tomorrow’s books today

We must compose tomorrow’s music today

We must buy tomorrow’s properties today

We must plant tomorrow’s churches today

We must develop tomorrow’s programs and strategies today

We must form tomorrow’s structures today

We must invest in the future now. People don’t sacrifice anything for today, but if they can catch a glimpse of what the future could look like, they would be willing to sacrifice something small today for something gigantic tomorrow. It’s called the principle of delayed gratification. We pay now and play later.

The future is worth fighting for. The battle is not over your past or your present; it’s over your future. Destroy the author and the book will never be written; destroy the musician and the song will never be sung. We must continue to be pioneers: pioneer churches and pioneer pastors, leaders and people.

Eight Characteristics of a Pioneer

1. Pioneers dream of a better life (Hebrews 11:10, 16).

2. Pioneers are willing to go where they have never been before and do what they have never done before in order to obey God (Hebrews 11:8).

3. Pioneers are willing to put up with what is less than ideal, because of what they see happening in the future. (Hebrews 11:9).

4. Pioneers always want to go further (Hebrews 11:13).

5. Pioneers are a tough breed of people. They don’t quit, they would rather die than go back to their old dull boring way of life. (Hebrews 11:15, 33-34).

6. Pioneers are builders. They will cultivate the wild land, turn the desert into an oasis and bring order out of disorder (Hebrews 11:7).

7. Pioneers are willing to fight for what they believe (Hebrews 11:33).

8. Pioneers break the way open for others. They blaze a trail for others to follow. We don’t have to re-invent the wheel; we can take off where other pioneers left off (Hebrews11:20-22).

Every generation needs a first generational pioneer movement. Settlers are quite happy to stay and maintain what already exists; but pioneers are always seeking to go beyond the present boundaries. There is more to Christianity, to Church, to life, to the Holy Spirit and the power of God than we have ever experienced and I am going after it!

A great future is not going to just fall on us. As Victory people we are ready to make an aggressive faith decision to get up and go after it. We are going to let God stretch our lives knowing that the best is still to come!

And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. (Mark 16:20)

God’s plan to Transform Nations is in the planting and building of enough Jesus loving, Bible believing, Holy Spirit filled, soul winning, New Testament type churches.

The biggest and longest lasting revivals that have ever taken place were church planting movements. The Methodists were a church planting movement with John Wesley as the apostolic leader. He had a systematic plan on how to plant churches all around the world. Then the Pentecostal churches came along at a later date. They didn’t have a plan, it just happened spontaneously by the Holy Spirit.

I believe the last great move of God will encompass both the Methodist and the Pentecostal movements. It will be a move that has an aggressive, strategic plan to plant churches all around the world, together with a spontaneous move of the Holy Spirit. My confidence is that as you read this book you will sense the heartbeat of God and be thrust forth into Holy Spirit directed and empowered service.

It’s time for another Great Awakening! It’s time to rise up and transform our communities and our nations, by being co-laborers with Jesus Christ in the exciting work of building His Church (Matthew 16:18). It’s time for the militant, miraculous and triumphant church to arise and be about the Father’s business!

Together with Christ, we can be World Changers, History Makers and Transforminators! Let’s do it big, Let’s do it good and Let’s do it together!

Yours for the planting and building of thousands of fresh, new, vibrant churches!

Dr George Hill

The prophetic passage of scripture for our Movement this next decade (2010-2020) is from Acts 9:31:

Then the churches ... had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit they were multiplied.

The key phrase for the Victory Movement is: Order always Precedes Multiplication and Miracles. Multiplication and Miracles begin with a multiplication of the Word, and then a multiplication of disciples. Out of discipleship comes forth leadership and a multiplication of the anointing that gives birth to a multiplication of churches and resources that will transform nations. Multiplication eventually brings globalization and return of Christ!

Chapter 1

Why Start New Churches?

1. There is a Need

In order to effectively evangelize an area, it takes one good church for every two thousand people. I heard one Church Growth expert say that, The greatest evangelistic methodology under heaven is the planting of new churches. The local church and having enough good local churches is God’s plan to transform nations. The local church is not one of God’s optional programs—it’s His only program. Jesus said, I will build My church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it (Matthew 18:16). This is a guarantee of success if we work together with Jesus to build His church, the way He says we should build it.

The United Nations estimates that by the year 2050 the world’s population will increase to 12 billion. That means there will be approximately twice as many people on the earth as there were at the turn of the century. Based on the formula of one good church for every two thousand people, the Church will need to plant another three million churches by the year 2050 just to keep up with the population growth!

Just as the future of the human race is dependent upon new babies being birthed into this world, so the future of the Church is dependent upon the planting of fresh, new, vibrant churches.

2. The Church Needs to Release Ministry

The job of the five-fold ministry is to equip and release people into ministry (Ephesians 4:11-13). If we don’t release people, they will become discouraged and critical, or they will rebel. Without a church planting vision, we train people to be either frustrated or to split churches. Too many trained leaders all with the same gifting, all in one church, can become like a plant pot with too many plants in it. The plants become root-bound. The roots begin to choke each other. There is just not enough room for growth. Proverbs 11:24-25 says:

There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich and he who waters will also be watered himself.

If a local church does not plan to plant churches, it will end up doing so anyway. It’s just that it will be done the wrong way! The Message Bible for these verses say, The world of the generous gets larger and larger, the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

3. A New Church Gives New Hope

A new church gives new