Christianity Today has a new article out this week that suggests that church planting has become the primary means of organized evangelism today. The article suggests that the model in the 70s was primarily through large scale crusades, a la Billy Graham. In the 80s trends like Evangelism Explosion led to personal evangelism become the primary means to grow the church. The article talks about how many denominations now see church planting as one of their primary means of evangelism, particularly in minority and marginalized groups.

I am not sure that the article grasps the full depth of what is happening in church planting, but it provides a good introduction to what many churches are doing, and some of the challenges involved.

I definitely agree that planting new churches is important. I am part of a church plant. I think that churches need to be careful to think through why the are planting churches. As long as churches are planting new churches to reach people who need the gospel, or to provide good teaching that is missing in an area, then I am all for it.