The "State of Church Planting USA" study was based on interviews with more than 100 leaders from a range of different denominations, 200 church-planting churches and some 45 church-planting networks. Stetzer, who headed up the project, said the results surprised him in many respects.
Key findings of the six-months-long effort include the following:
1) Interest in church planting is growing rapidly. The pace of church planting has accelerated dramatically in recent years. A simple Google search on the term "church planting," for example, now returns over 1 million hits. While only two mainstream books were published on church planting from 1996 to 2002, no fewer than 10 have been released in the last five years, with several more on the horizon. Equally important, church planting has become a preferred ministry option, with denominations and individual churches reporting that many of their "best...
