Apostolic Church Planting

Church planting is not just about gathering new communities of people who are already Christians. In the book of Acts, church plants begin with sharing the gospel. Planting churches flows naturally out of making disciples. Pastor J. D. Payne explains the process and stages of church planting, with biblical foundations and practical steps for planting teams. He provides a pathway for the multiplication of disciples, leaders and churches. Here are church planting strategies and activities that are simple, highly reproducible and can be implemented by ordinary team members, not just by charismatic leaders. This guide can be used for planting in contexts among any given people group, domestically or internationally. It is an ideal resource for teams to work through together as they follow God's call in their community.

J. D. Payne (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is a writer, speaker, church planter and currently serves as the pastor of church multiplication with The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. He previously served with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and as an associate professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he directed the Center for North American Missions and Church Planting. J. D. has written extensively in the areas of missions, evangelism and church growth and he speaks frequently for churches, networks, conferences and mission agencies. He is the author of books such as Missional House Churches, The Barnabas Factors, Discovering Church Planting, Strangers Next Door, Kingdom Expressions and Pressure Points. In addition to these works, he and Mark Terry coauthored Developing a Strategy for Missions and he coedited Missionary Methods with Craig Ott. J. D. has pastored five churches in Kentucky and Indiana and has worked with four church planting teams. He formerly served as the executive vice president for administration for the Evangelical Missiological Society and as the book review editor for the Great Commission Research Journal. He and his wife Sarah and their three children live in Birmingham, Alabama.