All right, well, welcome back to another recording of the Ask Free Grace Baptist podcast, where we answer various questions. This is our eighth time we're recording, batch eight as I call it. And so actually, it will be like question 73. We've already done 72 that we've published.

You can find those all on the website, there's some sermon audio on YouTube. The best place to go is to freegrace.ca forward slash ask, A-S-K, and you can search there and filter and see transcripts, links to YouTube, all of that. It's very easy to share and find and read them.

Yeah, I really enjoy doing this. I learn a lot as well. So yeah, I'm here with my pastors Cameron Porter and Jim Butler. So welcome back.

Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Good to be here. Good to be here.

All right, so we'll go into our first question, which is submitted by someone. How to go about planting a church? So, yeah, what does Scripture teach about planting a new church? What are practical first steps for someone who has that on their heart to go and plant, let's say, a confessional Reformed Baptist church?

Often an area where there isn't one, right? If there was one, they would join, but there isn't one. And what support, resources, partnerships can they take advantage of? You want me to take a kick at this, Ken?

Okay, well, the general overarching principle is the Great Commission. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptize those disciples that are made, and then teach those disciples all things that the Lord has commanded. So you've got the doctrine, the gospel preached, sinners saved, and then taught all things that the Lord had commanded. So the teaching takes place in the context of a local church.

First application of church planting would be the Great Commission, and then specifically with reference to planting a church, I think it's most important that you have people. The church isn't a building. Churches use buildings, and that's perfectly acceptable, but the church isn't a building. The church is the people of God.

So in order to plant a church, you've got to have the people of God. And, ideally, you should have somebody that would hopefully be able to teach and preach and shepherd those people. It's not absolutely essential. I think that elders are essential for the well-being of a church, but not necessarily the being of a church.

So, there can be feasibly a time where you have a group of people gathering together that don't have a specific shepherd at that point. But ideally, people, a pastor or somebody en route to pastoral ministry to serve that group of people, and I would say as well, you know, bound together by a common confession. Of course, we are Reformed Baptists, which means that we subscribe to the Second London Confession. of 1677, so any churches that we would help plant, we would make sure or want to make sure that they are confessional.

That is not to say that every other expression of a church is bad or evil or a synagogue of Satan. So, not it at all, but we believe in the division of labor. We believe that, you know, we have a common confession and we have a vested interest in seeing churches planted that represent that confession of faith. So, not a diss against any other groups.

May they be blessed of the Lord in their church planting efforts, but for us, it's usually going to rally around the confession that we hold to. And then, so if, you know, we were assisting, we would assist by, you know, these sorts of observations, these sorts of assistances, perhaps filling their pulpit from time to time, addressing some of the particular needs that they have. There's a financial component, the way that we have planted churches in the past historically is that we pony up a bit of the dough, we expect the church that's being planted to pony up some of that dough, and then if there's other needs or other churches that want to cooperate, they can as well. And so that's basically it that I can think of.

I'm not sure if that gets at the heart of the question. Any other thoughts there, Cameron? I'm comfortable with Jim's answer. It's a plant, so it's an analogy of a seed, right?

So it's got to grow and mature. For a child, it's got to grow up, but eventually, because a healthy church would be Having the elders is a plurality, and then planting more churches, and they plant more churches. It's got to continue and spread, right? That's right.

It's perpetual, and it's based on the general principle of making disciples, gather those disciples together, teach those disciples everything that Christ commanded. Those disciples, in turn, will then seek to go out and make disciples, and that's how the whole process is supposed to work. I think it's important too for the people who are going to be constituting that planted church, let's say in an example where perhaps there are no officers immediately, to have a proper disposition and outlook that there is no perfect church under heaven. I think there can be this idealistic capturing that sort of animates the people where they're going to get what they want, what they see as the perfect church.

But there is no perfect church this side of glory. And to manage expectations within that safe rubric of what a church ought to look like and should look like in glorifying God and owning the Savior, and in rallying around the things that are to be most surely believed amongst that gathered assembly, but understanding that there's still sin, we still live in a fallen world, Christians are still marked by remaining corruption, and so I think it's good to have an excitement about the church planting endeavor, but to manage that within the rubric of what the Bible says concerning the fact that on this side of glory, we're still marked by that remaining corruption. Yeah, I think from what I've heard, you guys would have more exposure on that than I do, of course, but a lot do kind of fizzle on the vine, or whatever the analogy is, they die before they can get to maturity and really rooted, right? Just because of division, lack of unity, egos, pride.

And an insistence on preferences. I mean, the bottom line is that, yeah, there's a tension. You're never going to get everything that you want out of a church, and you shouldn't. It's not about you, it's about Christ.

And so a confessional approach, we've got the general characteristics, we've got specific marks of what a true church is, preaching of the Word, ministration of the sacraments, discipline. Yeah, people may want extras here or extras there, but you've got to be willing to just say, you know what, the Word's being preached here, my soul is being fed, what else could I or should I want? And it's not just in a church plant setting, it's in a church life setting. Yeah, you gotta focus on the main things.

And it'd be nice if we had this, that, or the other, but it's not requisite, it's not necessary. And you are free, if you're so inclined, to go where those things are. Which, as long as you're not the consumer mindset, well, everything's gotta be about me. that's a dangerous position.

But at the same time, if you are needing something that's better for you spiritually, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to leave and look for something else. Yeah, and going back to Jim's comment regarding having a good confession of faith is that which serves foundationally for the life and the well-being of the church. The best of the confessions of faith will have a chapter on the church and on Christian worship, which obviously it intimately touches upon the doctrine of the church. And so having those chapters in a confession of faith, the people who are going to constitute a church plant can have the honest declaration of what they believe a church is to be.

And it's helpful that confessions of faith never include those things that are inconsequential to the life and the structure and the constitution of a church. They always capture the simplicity, however, however condensed or however expanded the chapter may be on the doctrine of the church, it always captures those things that are necessary for a church to be church, and excludes those things that people ought not to be busy about for what a church is to be. And I'm just thinking of what, Jim, you said as many times, the value of mentors. Obviously, you worked with Dr.

Barsalas for many years and others, and you're mentoring other people. So the importance of that, you always shared, and also just being in association. Don't be alone. There are so many people that are willing to help and pray and guide, right?

Beneficial to be in an association and beneficial for younger men to find older guys that will take an interest and be there for them to advise and encourage and pray for. It's a group effort. We'll leave that one there.