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The Planters’ College
My column is affectionally titled “The Planters’ College” in honor of Spurgeon’s work. We will look at Spurgeon’s insights and lectures and apply them to church planting.
Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892) is often referred to today as “the Prince of Preachers” for being one of the best preachers of Christ in church history. In addition to his strong preaching and teaching, Spurgeon should also be known as a force in planting churches and training pastors—he was “the Prince of Planting.”
Training and Sending
Spurgeon was more than committed to planting churches, he loved being a part of this work. In 1881, Spurgeon wrote in his magazine, The Sword and Trowel, “It is my greatest pleasure to aid in commencing new churches.” Spurgeon would love our desire to resource, equip, and encourage church planters at newchurches.com. Spurgeon put much effort into this same endeavor.
Through his Pastors’ College, Spurgeon oversaw the ministerial training of about 900 men. He also helped plant around 200 churches in Great Britain. Alex DiPrima writes in his new biography, Spurgeon: A Life, from in 1865 to 1887, Spurgeon and his Pastors’ College students founded over half of the new Baptist congregations in England. And if that wasn’t astounding enough, Spurgeon planted 53 of London’s 62 new Baptist churches during this 20-year window. Men from his Pastors’ College left London to serve the Lord in India, China, Japan, Africa, Spain, Italy, the West Indies, South America, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Spurgeon said that the Pastors’ College was about the work of the Kingdom “by founding new churches.”
Spurgeon also led his church, The Metropolitan Tabernacle, the largest church in the world at this time, to become a sending church. He said in one sermon:
“We have never sought to hinder the uprising of other Churches from our midst or in our neighbourhood. It is with cheerfulness that we dismiss our twelves, our twenties, our fifties, to form other Churches. We encourage our members to leave us to found other Churches; nay, we seek to persuade them to do it.”
He was never deterred by the difficulties of sending, training, funding, and planting churches. During his time in London, Spurgeon noticed the city’s growth and knew that more churches were needed. As he went about the city in his carriage, he would look for opportunities to work toward planting churches in hard places around the growing metropolis. Spurgeon resolved, “Where Christ is there is might, and where God is there is strength; let us therefore in God’s name determine to plant new Churches wherever openings occur.” We have much to learn from this powerhouse of planting.
Learning from Spurgeon
The Pastors’ College was the training arena for Spurgeon’s planters. He hoped and prayed that the College would enable his students “to plant churches in many cities.” In addition to mentoring students and conversing with them during walks or under a tree at his home, Spurgeon gave a lecture on Fridays to his students. Many of these lectures have been reproduced in the well-known work, Lectures to My Students. Throughout his lectures, Spurgeon gave spiritual, practical, and humorous insights into the work of pastoring. My column at New Churches will see what we can learn about ministry and planting from Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students. My column is affectionally titled “The Planters’ College” in honor of Spurgeon’s work. We will look at Spurgeon’s insights and lectures and apply them to church planting.
I share the same heart and aim for planters that Spurgeon wrote in his introduction to Lectures to My Students, “The College”—this column—“aims at training preachers”—and planters—rather than scholars…If a student should learn a thousand things, and yet fail to preach the gospel acceptably, his College course will have missed its true design…To be wise to win souls is the wisdom ministers should possess.” We plant churches by engaging the city with the gospel, winning souls, and making disciples. Let’s learn from Spurgeon. Class is in session.
Notes:
Alex DiPrima. Spurgeon: A Life (p. 197). Kindle Edition.