Church Planting for Reproduction

Book excerpt: The task of church planting requires the wisdom of a practitioner and the logic of a strategist. With his years of experience planting churches, and his extensive research on the subject, the author displays these two requisites on every page of his fruitful study. "As a missionary and missiologist," writes J. Ronald Blue of Dallas Theological Seminary, "the author gives a new perspective to church planting that extends beyond the immediate and sometimes shallow goal of a newly installed fellowship of believers. This book will be an invaluable aid to church planters and missionaries. This is a church planting guide that puts it all together." The author emphasizes that the primary goal of missions constitutes planting churches, which in turn are able to reproduce themselves. By using the proven management method Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), the author outlines each step needed to accomplish that goal. Over sixty charts illustrate his principles and directives. Samuel D. Faircloth served as a U.S. Army Chaplain in Italy, WWII and as a missionary teacher and church planter in Portugal for thirty-six years, and as academic dean and professor of missions and church history in the Netherlands for six years, continuing as adjunct professor until 2010. He is a graduate of Wheaton College, Illinois, B.S., Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, MDiv., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, D. Miss. He resides in Windsor Park Manor, in Carol Stream, Illinois with his wife, Betty.