I’m from a background with a similar approach—going off to start your own thing from scratch is frowned upon, because it usually just cannibalizes preexisting churches and siphons off the disgruntled etc.
We had a large and fast growing church (over 200 members), with people coming from all around. So every now and then there would be an attempt to choose someone worthy (good preacher, of good standing, cares about people, known to be moral etc.) who lives in a place where there are already a couple of families, and get them to start their own thing with the blessing of the main church. The explicit goal would be for them to be totally self sufficient, though of course they would both stay close (ideally...).
This was in a massively majority Catholic country, so there were very few evangelical churches (official statistics have them as less than 1% of the population). Church growth was supposed to be via proselytization, but was usually via having lots of children and catching fleeing members from other churches.
I’m from a background with a similar approach—going off to start your own thing from scratch is frowned upon, because it usually just cannibalizes preexisting churches and siphons off the disgruntled etc.
We had a large and fast growing church (over 200 members), with people coming from all around. So every now and then there would be an attempt to choose someone worthy (good preacher, of good standing, cares about people, known to be moral etc.) who lives in a place where there are already a couple of families, and get them to start their own thing with the blessing of the main church. The explicit goal would be for them to be totally self sufficient, though of course they would both stay close (ideally...).
This was in a massively majority Catholic country, so there were very few evangelical churches (official statistics have them as less than 1% of the population). Church growth was supposed to be via proselytization, but was usually via having lots of children and catching fleeing members from other churches.