Planting Churches That Reproduce: Starting a Network of Simple Churches

I am a missionary church planter involved in planting simple churches. Joel's book, Planting Churches that Reproduce, has clarified a number of issues and has given me invaluable insights. It helped me see what we do right and things we need to correct. The book emphasizes the importance of building a network of strong cells before starting celebration services, one of the lessons we need to correct. Basic principles Joel shares will guide us in our current church plants and in future efforts.

What I love the most is how I envisioned planting a church as I read through this book. Comiskey makes it easy to understand how to plant a simple church that grows organically and reproduces itself instead of becoming large and unmanageable. I highly recommend this to anyone who wonders if they have what it takes to plant a church. I would also recommend this to any existing pastor who wants to plant a new church out of his congregation. It has lots of great info for this strategy too!

Joel Comiskey has added an outstanding resource to the literature on church planting. I wish it would have been around when I was a church planter in 1986. It would have helped solidify my vision and given me some instructive direction coming out of seminary. The American church could benefit a great deal by thinking about a simpler approach. This is well worth the time reading. John Reith, pastor and church planter

Joel Comiskey delivers another solid book that folks involved in church planting at any level will refer to again and again. Joel has a well developed skill for doing scholarly research and to then crafting his research findings into a practical book with specific principles and applications. I also value the real life illustrations that Joel incorporates into the book. Knowing that the author is a seasoned church planter adds tremendous credibility to the book. I found the appendices to be valuable as well. Especially helpful is the appendix where Joel lists the common patterns that he discovered among the 8 largest worldwide cell churches.

This is a great book. It covers themes, that other simple church literature left out. It helps to see the church broader than most do and gives Vision beyond the own church. Here we can read, what the cell church movement can learn from the house churches; and what the house church movement can learn from the cell churches. Very practically! Oliver Lutz, Pastor