Church PLANT Manual

F oreword

I Will Build My Church People aren’t saved just to go to heaven. God is creating a people. We can’t lose sight of this. Unfortunately, too many have reduced the salvation story to a simple formula of “God made the world, we are sinners, so God sent Jesus to save each of us from our sins.” Creation, sin, Jesus, and that’s a wrap! Some wonder, well, what’s wrong with that? Here’s what’s wrong: the creation-sin-Jesus formula leads to a hyper-individualized Christianity, with our faith being exclusively about our personal lives. Jesus becomes an ecclesiastical bellhop to serve me, myself, and I. We cheapen the gospel message to crass consumption. The Bible provides an in-depth story, not a simple formula. When we confess Jesus Christ, we are confessing the world-changing idea that Christ came to die for sins, defeat Satan and destroy his works, and reestablish the reign of God in the earth. That’s the work Jesus did with his life, death, burial, and resurrection. From the book of Acts on, the New Testament is written under the assumption that you are living in community with others within the confines of a local church. Salvation is personal but it’s to be lived out communally.

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