'Points of Departure' by John Valentine aims to make a positive case for a theology of church planting, exploring the current field and inviting new, constructive queries.
By John ValentineAugust 2022
John Valentine is a theologian, thought leader and trainer, working with teams to revitalise existing churches and start new innovative ones. His work sees him contribute to the ongoing theological conversation concerning church planting.
Points of Departure is a companion to Valentine’s Is Church Planting legitimate? It looks to compliment this work and take the argument forward, rather than repeating or duplicating its discussion.
Points of Departure aims to be more ‘on the front foot’, making more of the positive case theologically for church planting. Valentine compares and contrasts Hans Küng’s The Church and Jürgen Moltmann’s The Church in the Power of the Spirit as chief interlocutors in the realm of ecclesiology in recent years, noting their shared vision for an eschatological church, rooted in the messianic kingdom vision of the historic Jesus Christ. He moves to a discussion of a more Catholic perspective, culminating with a suggested ‘point of departure’ of a nuanced ecclesiology of ‘church as event’, underwritten by a string sense of the oneness, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity of God himself. He concludes with a theological method, and offers the work of theologians Healy and Watkins as a way to cross Oliver O’Donovan’s ‘unbridged hiatus’ between theologies of activity and being when it comes to the church .
Valentine writes with the same eirenic intent as Is Church Planting legitimate?, as someone who loves and respects the tradition of the Church, and with the hope that further constructive theological conversations will be enabled by this paper, which, in turn, may lead to more churches being planted and more people finding faith in Jesus Christ and life in him.
