What is Saturation Church Planting?

Saturation Church Planting (SCP) is a vision to establish healthy small groups or churches, a ministry philosophy to mobilize the body of Christ, and a strategy to mentor and multiply church planters and trainers.

The Vision

SCP believes the mission of the church is to “disciple the nations” (Matt. 28:19). We understand nations to be people groups rather than geo-political nation-states. In order for the people groups in a country, region or city to be discipled there must be a healthy small group or church within reasonable cultural and geographical distance. It has been suggested that one healthy small group or church should exist for every 1,000 members of a people group. Using that as a benchmark, the number of small groups or churches needed in the Czech Republic is about 10,300! In the church planting context, this would be the point of saturation.

The Ministry Philosophy

One distinctive emphasis of the SCP ministry philosophy is “Z”-Thinking, or thinking with the end in mind. For example, there are about 430,000 residents in the city of Brno. The mission of the church is to disciple the people groups living there. In this case, the saturation point, or the “Z”, is about 430 healthy small groups or churches.

The SCP approach to ministry also seeks to mobilize all the evangelical Christians in the target area to plant churches. Working with the whole body of Christ, we can embrace our unity and express our diversity.

A third vital aspect of the SCP ministry is the emphasis on national church planters and trainers. In the long run, as cultural insiders and fluent speakers, Czechs are generally more effective church planters than expatriate missionaries. Recognizing this, SCP ministry seeks to facilitate a church planting movement by equipping and mentoring Czech church planters.

The Strategy

The basic SCP strategy has two primary components: mentoring and multiplication. Mentoring is much like coaching a sports team. The coach’s function is to train the players to complete their role on the team, fulfill their potential, work together and execute the game plan. For SCP ministry, mentoring includes the roles of a teacher and church planting coach. The mentor is neither the primary “doer” nor the “boss.” His purpose is to help church planters establish healthy small groups and churches. In the Czech context, our role may be more appropriately defined as a “player-coach” since our projekt Zet members are actively involved in hands-on ministry as well. It is imperative that we be seen as “doers” even though others will always have the primary roles.

Multiplication is the result of mentoring church planters, some of whom will become trainers and mentors themselves. After several cycles of multiplication, saturation church planting movement begins.