Report of the
Executive Director of Church Extension
Daniel G. Ziegler
THIRTY YEARS OF CHURCH PLANTING
“For when David had served God’s purpose
in his own generation, he fell asleep . . . .” (Acts 13:36)
How long is a generation? King David reigned over Judah and Israel for forty years. My fortieth anniversary of ministry in my denomination will occur in April 1999, the Lord willing. In our American culture, many pastors’ careers will be somewhat less than forty years (with the exception of college and seminary education and our custom of retirement). Thirty years comprise most of a person’s life work. God willing, in the late summer of this year, I will complete my thirtieth year of directing the church planting ministry of the BFC.
My own family’s history might help to define the generation. We have a series of six Ziegler men, fathers and sons, who have been named Daniel. My great-grandfather, Daniel P. Ziegler, was born in 1823, as was our own Eusebius Hershey. My grandfather, Daniel C. Ziegler, was born in 1863, during the Civil War. My father, Daniel K. Ziegler, born in 1907, was the first of the Ziegler family to be a member of the BFC, which he joined in 1932, soon after I was born in the depth of the Great Depression. Son, Daniel A. Ziegler, was born in 1962, the year in which I turned thirty. His son, Daniel R. Ziegler, was born in 1986, while his father was on staff at Pinebrook Bible Conference.
If you take the birth date of my great-grandfather, 1823, and subtract it from 1986, the date of my grandson’s birth, you have a lapse of 162 years. Dividing 162 by five (the number of generations) leaves an average of thirty-two year years for each generation. I believe thirty-two years is generally considered a generation in the life of any people—family, nation or church.
David “served God’s purposes in his own generation”. The Lord judges us as individuals. But God also judges nations, families, and churches corporately. Indeed, He judges various generations of those entities. There are generations that fear and please Him and others who fail and provoke Him. In the context of the Ten Commandments, the Lord refers to the generation of “those who hate me” and “those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:5,6). God speaks about how our beliefs and obedience affect the generations that follow us—for good or evil. And that should concern us greatly.
In the Song of Moses, that prophet speaks of the people of Israel during the wilderness wanderings: “For the Lord’s portion is his people” (Deu. 32:9), but “to their shame they are no longer his children” (v. 5). They had become “a warped and crooked generation” (v. 5). They are “a perverse generation”, and an “evil generation” (Deu. 1:35). “The Lord’s anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the desert forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone” (Num. 32:13). To the next generation, Moses says, “And here you are, a brood of sinners, standing in the place of your fathers and making the Lord even more angry with Israel”(v. 14). Likewise, the people who were in Israel when Jesus walked among them were a generation of snakes (Luke 3:7), an “adulterous and sinful generation”.
Surely, as the BFC, we have desired to be a generation who has served well our Lord, our Church, our nation and our world, to the glory of the triune God.
Generations
We may make some assessment of our work by comparing it with the previous generations. Since we have no published statistics from before 1881, we may, for the purpose of comparison, use that date as the start of our second generation, counting the 23 years before as the first generation. Twenty-six years, 1881-1907, comprise the second generation; 1907-1937, the third; 1937-1967 the fourth and 1967 through 1997 form the fifth. The following table summarizes a number of comparisons.
| Generation II 1881-1907 | Generation III 1907-1937 | Generation IV 1937-1967 | Generation V 1967-1997 | |
| total membership | 1271 | 3866 | 4460 | 7175 |
| membership gain | 1071 | 2597 | 594 | 2715 |
| percent increase | 536% | 204% | 15% | 61% |
| new congregations started | 32 | 23 | 14 | 34 |
| new particular churches recognized | 20 | 7 | 9 | 17 |
| particular churches died | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 |
| total particular churches | 26 | 33 | 39 | 51 |
| gain of particular churches | 20 | 7 | 6 | 10 |
| particular churches continuing to present | 18 | 5 | 7 | 13 |
| percentage of particular churches surviving | 90% | 77% | 50% | 77% |
| missions died | 3 | 17 | 8 | 16 |
| percent of missions died | 9% | 74% | 57% | 47% |
| net gain of total congregations | 29 | 9 | 4 | 13 |
| percent gain | 233% | 28% | 10% | 29% |
| total congregations | 32 | 41 | 45 | 58 |
The Good News
By the power and providence of God, Generation V has been blessed in forming churches and abetting the growth of the denomination. Note the following:
(1) More new congregations were started during Generation V than in any previous generation.
(2) Net membership growth by Generation V has been the greatest of any thirty-year period. Surely that would not have happened without the large number of new church starts.
(3) Percentage growth of the BFC in Generation V was more than four times that of the previous generation.
(4) Generation II (1881-1907) was astonishing in that 20 congregations were recognized as particular churches during that era. Generation V was second with 17.
(5) Of the 20 particular churches recognized during Generation II, 18 (90%), amazingly, have continued to the present. Generation V tied with Generation IV for runner-up at 77% (13 of 17).
(6) Eight particular churches died during Generation V, which is four times as many as in all of our previous history. This is a serious problem. It points out the need for some entity of the denomination to come along side of struggling and declining churches to try to help them turn around before their situations become fatal. If there is no one else to do it, perhaps the Board of Church Extension should explicitly add to its portfolio assisting declining churches to reorganize so that more of them may survive and thrive. Under the management of the Church Extension Department, two declining congregations have been turned about and restored to their places as particular churches. It is encouraging that, despite the demise of eight churches, Generation V saw a net increase of 10 particular churches—more than either of the previous two generations.
(7) The death rate of missions (congregations that have not yet become particular churches) during Generation V was 47%—lower than either of the previous generations. However, a 47% failure rate is distressing and we should expect to better that percentage in the future. Our success in bringing a majority of new missions (53%) to full establishment is probably higher than that of most other denominations. For example, two-thirds of the Southern Baptists church plants fail to become fully formed churches. Church planting involves risk-taking. There will always be some failures; even the great Apostle Paul did not establish all the churches he attempted to plant.
(8) The net gain of total congregations (churches and missions), which was 13, equaled the total of the two previous generations.
During the thirty years of Generation V, the BFC entered three new states—more than in any preceding generation. Presently we have more congregations than ever before in each of the five states where there are Bible Fellowship Churches.
The Bad News
While there are numerous ways to measure the considerable successes in denominational growth and church-planting evangelism during Generation V, there is some bad news. For more than a century prior to 1967, our churches gave 5-6% of their total offerings for extending the Church. Average giving through the Generation IV years (1937 through 1966), which included a number of the years of the Great Depression, was 4.95% of total offerings. That proportion has steadily declined through the Generation V years till it was 1.93% in 1996—61% lower than the 1937-66 average. And it appears that church giving in 1997 for Church Extension dropped even lower.
This precipitous decline has been the major factor in a slowdown of the number of new missions started in the last few years.
Let me relate this scenario to your local church. If all the tithing people in your church would decrease their giving to just 3.9% of their salaries, would your church thrive? Might the future survival of your church be in jeopardy? Yet this is precisely what is happening to Church Extension giving! And that really is BAD NEWS!
If this demoralizing decline in Church Extension support is not reversed, we cannot call ourselves a Great Commission Church. “If any church sees its nation in desperate moral and spiritual decline with many of its citizens and communities without the light of the Gospel and without access to, or influence by a sound biblical church and withholds the support that it ought to be giving for spreading the Gospel and planting sound churches in that needy nation, how can that church say it really loves the God of all grace and is seeking to obey His great commission?” (I John 3:17, loosely, but I believe credibly, applied to the issue under discussion).
THE GREAT NEWS
The true fifth generation of the BFC still has ten years to run. Should the Lord tarry, we shall celebrate our 150th anniversary in the year 2008. The real Generation V will have run from 1978 through 2008. It is within our power to make a good Generation V of the BFC a really great Generation V!
If we are to step up our pace of planting new congregations and growing our Church in the coming ten years, two critical factors are needed:
(1) more sowers and reapers to go into the American harvest field. We must pray for laborers for the Lord’s harvest (Matthew 9:36-38). This could not be clearer!
(2) more dollars to support the enterprise. We must sustain these sowers and reapers and fund the overall enterprise of extending the BFC.
As soon as possible—certainly by 2008, our sesquicentennial —every church (with the exception of the few who are already giving 5% of their offerings for extending the church, and possibly a few very small or very poor congregations) ought to come up with a financial plan that will provide at least 5% of its total offerings for Church Extension. Once that proportion has been reached, it must be indexed at 5% and carefully provided each year.
Opportunities abound in North America. Our Church Extension Department has demonstrated that it has the know-how and experience effectively to plant churches and help the churches start daughter churches. We can do far more than we have been doing. As we do this, we shall receive the blessing and benefit of being part of a vibrant, growing denomination that will please and glorify God. And that is really GREAT NEWS!
The Status of our Work
I am pleased to report that our work is in good condition. Most of the congregations under our care are making good progress. I am happy that I may continue on in this good work in the year ahead.
Churches
Having supported themselves fully without budgeted appropriations for the past three years,Community Church of Red Hill, PA and Faith Church of Holmes, NY graduate from the Department at this 116th Annual Conference.
The Red Hill Church is a textbook case study, having started in a Bible study and prayer group, being recognized as a particular church two years from its start, achieving self-support by its fifth birthday and now continuing to grow and display wholesome and exemplary shared life. Our sister church planting organization, RHMA played an important part in the planting of the Red Hill church, which was a joint venture by the two organizations.
Faith Church, Holmes, NY began as a cold start at Whaley Lake in 1983. Development of the congregation was slow, but steady and glorious in its small community and building, with a number of outstanding conversions of adults and families. A merger of our Whaley Lake mission and Second Kent Baptist Church in 1990 provided an enlarged group and commodious facility for the merged congregation. Two years later, Faith Church was recognized as a particular church and in another three years it began full self-support. We shall need to continue to work with the church to seek to effect resolution of the title to the church property on Horsepound Road, Town of Kent.
The church at Edison, NJ continues strong and growing. It is pressing its search for permanent facilities, with an existing church edifice in New Brunswick seeming to have the inside track at present. Edison will be slated for graduation next April (1999). This may turn on its ability to support itself in a new home without assistance. If the congregation is able, the Board of Church Extension may need to assist the church in gathering a down payment from within the BFC in order for it to induce a lending institution to extend it a mortgage.
Pleasant Valley, NY continues to progress slowly. It has fully supported itself through its first full year with a full-time pastor. This support has entailed a deliberate draw down of the church’s financial resources. If it is able to continue full self-support for two more years, it may graduate in April, 2000. The need for more suitable perm-anent facilities may necessitate some extended financial assistance.
Aberdeen (Bayshore), NJ continues to move forward. It is completing its first full year as a particular church, led by local elders. The church is growing in numbers, spiritual development and finances.
Starting from a smaller base, Scranton and Walnutport, PA have both done well in the past year, adding new constituents and members. These congregations have demonstrated that old, declining churches can be turned around, again to survive and thrive.
At Ocean County, NJ, Pastor Dean Stortz and his people have been greatly encouraged as some solid new growth has occurred in the last year. We rejoice with them.
Missions
The mission in Newark, NJ is an outstanding urban congregation that is on the verge of becoming recognized as a particular church. Two to four men appear to this observer to be nearing readiness to serve as elders. The election and installation of elders is a goal for 1998.
There is an urgent need for the property in Newark that will provide public access to our projected site for a worship center. We are working with the city government to obtain title to the property without having to go to auction. I believe the next auction is scheduled for May. Our men in Newark will be prepared to bid if that becomes necessary.
At Staten Island, NY, the mission is making some excellent progress. Its circle of ministry is ever increasing as new constituent families are added. Translation of these families into larger worship attendance is slow. The installation of a completely new bathroom and laundry by workers under the direction of our mission project coordinator, Chris Merrick, has been dramatic. A new ceiling and new lighting in the sanctuary have been added as well as a new exterior door and several new replacement windows.
The mission at Beacon, NY has added several new people in recent months for some solid percentage growth. Pastor and Mrs. David Way have moved during the year to a townhouse in Fishkill, close to the City of Beacon.
Our only New England congregation, the mission in Thompson, CT, is doing well. Dennis Spinney is very eager to see a new mission begin in the tri-state area. He is considering starting a second congregation in Danielson and forming a circuit. It is important that we have a close sister church for the Thompson congregation. If there is no other way for us to get the second congregation underway, it may be expedient to do it via the circuit route.
Our newest missions are New Community in Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY and Philemon in Atlantic County, NJ. The congregation of New Community BFC continues to be vibrant and vital. It is growing in the quality of its shared life, its outreach and in attendance. Paul Virr, a Canadian who recently emigrated to Brooklyn to become Director of Message to Israel, has been serving the congregation as interim pastor. He is sincerely and deeply appreciated and loved by the people of New Community. The search for a full-time organizing pastor for this mission, thus far fruitless, has been disappointing and frustrating to me. I am continuing to press the search with persistence and diligence.
During the year, our mission at Somers Point/Egg Harbor was discontinued. A new mission in Atlantic County has been opened, which will be designed to reach released inmates and their families—perhaps the people group that is most unreached and neglected by the churches in America. This new mission is called the Philemon Bible Fellowship Church. The organizing pastor, Richard A. Moyer, is the chaplain at the Atlantic County Correctional Institution. Programs and meetings are just getting underway. We should continue to pray much for this new ministry to a very needy group of people.
A large work crew from several of the churches converged on South Allentown on Saturday, February 21, to work on the former Salem Church building and parsonage. This work day was significant because it was a step toward the formation of a new Spanish language mission of the BFC in that neighborhood, and it was one of several major projects by volunteers under the direction of Chris Merrick, our new missions project coordinator.
Four surveys of South Allentown, each independent of the others, confirmed the need and opportunity for planting an Hispanic church there where Latino population is large and growing. At least 80% of the resident families in the Cumberland Gardens City housing project are Hispanic. A majority of the students at the neighborhood public school are Latino. Our building there is perfectly suited to housing a new, growing congregation. Two Sunday afternoon luncheons featuring Spanish food, singing and prayers were well attended. Their purpose was informational-inspirational to raise up awareness and prayer support.
The South Allentown mission is a cooperative venture of the Board of Missions and the Board of Church Extension. The latter board has established a first year’s operating budget for the mission of $65,000 and required that 65%—$42,250—be in hand or pledged to be given in that first year before the work on the field could officially begin. The bulk of that sum is already there in cash or promises, with the major portion coming from the Lehigh Valley area churches. There is still a need for a portion of the first-year costs, and the need for funding assistance for the next few years will be sizable. Churches and individuals who desire to help this mission may give through either board, designated for “S. Allentown” or “Hispanic Mission”.
We have identified a potential organizing pastor for South Allentown who is fluently bilingual. He is presently a candidate under care of the Ministerial Candidate Committee and is right now taking his exams in process of obtaining his probationer’s license.
This Allentown church plant may well be the first project in our history to enjoy the active participation of so many entities within the Bible Fellowship Church, including the Joint Committee for Ethnic Church Planting, the Intercultural Ministries Study Committee, the Board of Directors of the BFC, the Ministerial Candidate Committee, City Concerns, volunteer work crews under the direction of Chris Merrick, many concerned churches and individuals who are, or will be, praying for this new mission, along with, of course, the Boards of Missions and Church Extension.
The Mission Project Coordinator is a joint project of the Board of Missions and the Board of Church Extension. It is another of the ways the two mission boards are working together. Chris Merrick is one of the missionaries supported through the Board of Missions. He recruits and directs volunteer work crews, available to serve any of the churches and missions in the Church Extension Department, as well as the other agencies of the Bible Fellowship Church, projects on mission fields abroad and smaller Bible Fellowship Churches with limited means and personnel to do projects on their properties. In addition to the work in Allentown, major projects were accomplished at Staten Island and Newark during the Conference year. Others are in prospect. Chris works through the Board of Missions and may be reached there. Additional support for the Merrick family is needed. It may be given through the Board of Missions.
Many of the church planting missionaries who serve in the Church Extension Department are in need of support, and it will take new giving to fund the formation of more new churches. Money for support of our missionaries or designated for future church starts may be forwarded to the Office of Development, Board of Church Extension, PO Box 98, Zionhill, PA 18981.
In the next year I hope to be involved in at least one more church start, preferably several. I suggest that the following guidelines apply to new starts:
(1) We seek to plant new churches in places of greatest spiritual need, whether they are in or outside of present denominational boundaries.
(2) We look for communities with no or few evangelical churches.
(3) If we contemplate several locations that meet the first two guidelines, we give priority to target areas where churches with our theological understanding are non-existent or scarce.
(4) We seek to plant new BFC congregations in clusters of at least two or three for mutual fellowship, help and encouragement. We shall give high priority to opening a second mission in an area where only one congregation exists which is far from other Bible Fellowship Churches.
(5) We give precedence to working with established churches, consortiums and regions who desire to plant churches and seek help from the Department.
(6) We intend to continue to push out the perimeters of the BFC into outlying territory and states in our needy nation as our obedience to the “all Judea and Samaria” part of our Lord’s Great Commission.
When I reflect on a generation of planting new Bible Fellowship Churches and as I anticipate my last year as Executive Director, I have thought of the words of the three hymns: “Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me”, “To God be the glory, great things He has done” and “The Church’s one Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord”. I say “Amen, amen and amen”.