Entrepreneurial Church Planting: Engaging Business and Mission for Marketplace

Church planters generally are optimistic and enthusiastic about church planting for this generation. Many are launching or about to experiment with innovative approaches to plant churches that engage the marketplace. They are applying missional perspectives to reach this large mission field. This book documents and explores these innovative approaches to church planting. The various authors describe how entrepreneurs are now finding where people are already gathering (or would gather) in the marketplace such that these businesses create a venue for a church. We are calling this Entrepreneurial Church Planting (ECP). In order to encourage and explore further innovative ECP approaches, this book provides both theoretical foundations and practical applications arranged in three parts. Part I contains an introduction to the volume. Part II provides the biblical foundations to undergird ECP. Part III provides practical applications from both historical and contemporary examples and concludes with suggested starting points for experimentation and implementation. The goal of this volume is to encourage church planters to explore creative church planting approaches by engaging their faith in the marketplace.

“This is a must-read for the people of God, the pastor and the laity, who are concerned about the mission of God. Just as Business as Mission has been explored and utilized for restricted-access nations, Entrepreneurial Church Planting needs to be explored and understood for ‘creative access spaces’ in the post-Christian world. This book will provoke you into thinking about church planting in a new way.” —David A. Bosch, Ph.D., CPA, Associate Professor and Business Program Coordinator at Boyce: The College at Southern Seminary