Passing the Baton: Church Planting That Empowers

by Tom Steffen

Book Overview

"Passing the Baton" not only zeros in on the central task of Christian missions, it does so in a way that is creative and engaging. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1882757025
• ISBN13: 9781882757022
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Center for Organizational & Ministry Developm
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive strategy

"Passing the Baton: Church Planting that Empowers" provides a clear and sufficiently detailed overview of the progression of intentional and integral ministry in a cross-cultural setting. Based on field experience and couched in academic research, Dr. Steffen introduces a five-stage strategy for cross-cultural ministry. The key to the strategy is the paradox of starting at the end by identifying and describing the functioning and multiplying community of Christ followers. From there a comprehensive step-by-step process is outlined. There is strong emphasis on equipping local leaders and understanding the change in roles throughout the five stages. I value the blend of biblical principles (note the repeated references to Scripture, particularly the book of Acts and the church epistles) with anthropological theory. The impact of "Passing the Baton" may be measured by its increasing use internationally. Recursos Estrategicos Globales, based in Cordoba, Argentina, has translated the book into Spanish for use in the Latin mission movement. The India Institute of Missiology has also incorporated the book into its training material for the no less than 40,000 Indian missionaries. This book is a must read for any cross-cultural Christian worker.

Have a Plan and Develop Leaders

This is a good read for anyone interested in church planting strategy. Obviously this includes church planters themselves, but it may also include sending Christians who want to learn more about mission strategy. Unfortunately, there are missionaries that do not allow future potential leaders to develop into leaders. This book stresses the importance of developing Christians that will be able to lead. Missionaries need to train and develop Christians in a way that allows them to be trusted with ministry. This book does an excellent job of showing a very obvious fact about missions- planning is good. We obviously need to be dependent upon God for everything in our lives- but this doesn't mean that we wander aimlessly in our mission work with no planning or strategy (based on a Biblical worldview of course). Another excellent point that is continually covered in the book is the danger of paternalism. Never will believers or churches mature if they are never trusted to live their own Christian lives and minister on their own. A good church planter will recognize and apply this. This is an excellent book and I don't want the following two criticisms to override the review of this book. But here are two areas that I found negative about the book. FIRST, a term that the author employs frequently in his book is `phase-out.' The relay-race is used in the book (and the title) to illustrate `phase-out.' While I personally believe that it is an important goal to develop leaders that can lead churches, I also believe that this emphasis can be detrimental if taken too far. In our efforts to `phase out' of a location, missionaries can actually communicate to the target people that they do not belong to the universal body of Christ. We work so hard at making them a `three selfs, phased-out church' that we forget that they are brothers and sisters in Christ. Love and Scripture-based living need to take precedence over planting a `textbook' church. SECOND, there is a lack of Scripture in this book. There is a small section in the second chapter entitled `The New Testament Perspective,' but it hardly comes to any convincing conclusions. I would have appreciated more of the author's strategies and ideas based on Scripture.

An excellent comprehensive book on planting a new church.

Tom Steffon does an excellent job at laying out a model for planting self-sufficient churches. His model is complete and easy to understand. Steffon provides five stages a new plant goes through from pre-evangelism, to phase-out.