By Michael Wacht

LAKELAND — The Rev. Mont Duncan, director of the Florida Conference’s Office of New Church Development, said that if the United Methodist Church in Florida is going to reach the people in its culture, 3 percent its churches need to be new church starts. Recently, about 1 percent of the Florida Conference’s churches have been new churches or missions.

“[We have to] have a movement of churches starting churches,” Duncan said. “If we want to make the leap from 1 percent to 3 percent, we have to go back to the New Testament principle of churches starting churches. It’s not a conference program, but a church-wide outreach ministry.”

Duncan saw that principle in practice during an Oct. 23-31 trip to Manila, Philippines. The trip was sponsored by the General Board of Global Ministries and intended to give a team of four annual conference new church development directors an opportunity to study the model the Manila District has been using for about 20 years.

“The Manila District had a superintendent who stressed churches starting churches,” Duncan said. “His successor had the expectation that every church would start a new church.”

The efforts there were so successful the Manila District became two districts to accommodate the new churches, according to Duncan.

The movement is the result of both the annual conference and local churches making new church starts a priority, Duncan said. The annual conference set three funding priorities, including equitable compensation, superintendents and new church starts. All of the programming and ministry is done at the district level.

“They put their money where their mouth is,” Duncan said.

The local church’s part is to be healthy and have a vision of starting a new church, according to Duncan.

“One element is the vision of the pastor for reaching unchurched people and making disciples,” he said. “Another element is a healthy church has a vision and heart for unchurched people and making disciples. An unhealthy church sees a new church as a threat to its reaching the unchurched.”

Once a church has that vision, it identifies a community that does not have a United Methodist presence and builds relationships and meets needs in that community. Churches that start new churches are called mother churches.

Knox United Methodist Church in Manila developed a model for doing that based on the acronym MODEL, Duncan said. The letters stand for medical, optical, dental, evangelism and legal. A team of United Methodist laity who work in those fields volunteer their time at clinics in the area where the new church will be started. While people are waiting to see the professionals, teams of laity talk and pray with them.

“That’s a key,” Duncan said. “The church cares for people in practical ways and is willing to pray for them.”

The names of the people served are given to the pastor of the new church, who invites those people to a small group Bible study. “There’s a progression,” Duncan said. “It starts with a Bible study in the living room. Then it moves to a Bible study in the garage because it grows. Then they move into a larger space and then into a worship center.”

The pastors of the new churches are laity. “Some of the lay pastors are going to seminary, but they’re in the minority,” Duncan said.

The pastors are mentored by elders and supported by a team from their mother church. Team members are invited to spend two years as missionaries to the new church, providing leadership and financial support.