TITUS: A Church Planter’s Reflection–Series Intro
As most of you who read my blog know, we are in the process of planting a church: Cross of Christ Fellowship in Naperville IL.
The following is a series of exegetical reflections on the book of Titus from the perspective of a church planter. Each post will contain a passage from Titus, a short exegetical interaction–attempting to understand what the book is saying (What God is speaking to us through His inspired word)–and reflections on how the passage relates to the task of church planting in general or to our situation in Naperville in particular.
As I begin this series, I admit that I am still in the early stages of church planting. My wife and I have been in the city of Naperville where we are planting a church for about a year, and our core team has grown to around 20 people (15 adults [including 2 pregnant women], and 6 children) and we are not yet meeting on own for corporate worship on Sundays. We are still doing the hard work of building a core team (initial congregation), doing evangelism, forming relationships, and preparing ourselves for when we will launch public worship services. So I write this series with the humble admission that I have much to learn about church planting. Hopefully, like Augustine, as I write I will learn and I will learn as I write.
Why Titus? Titus is the perfect book for church planters because of the nature and circumstances of when it was written. The Apostle Paul wrote it (in the time period after the events in the book of Acts) after he and his crew began some frontier missionary/church planting work on the island of Crete. For some reason, after beginning the work of church planting, Paul had to depart Crete. To oversee and carry on this church planting work, Paul left behind his trusty coworker Titus (Titus 1:5). Now, Paul is writing Titus (and those in the congregations with him) to give instructions and encouragement to continue the work of church planting in Crete.
We would do well to listen carefully to these words in our church planting context. May the Lord encourage us as we seek to hear His voice and pray for wisdom in church planting.