Why Churches?

THE STRATEGY of history's greatest missionary, St. Paul was to plant churches in urban centers.  Paul had a simple strategy.  First, he went into large cities (Acts 16), and then he planted churches in those cities (Titus 1).  Once Paul had done that, he could say that he had "fully preached" the gospel in a region and he moved on to another large city (Romans 15:19,23).

"the way to most permanently influence a city is to plant churches in it."

Paul had two controlling assumptions:  One was that the way to most permanently influence a country was through its largest cities, and the other was that the way to most permanently influence a city was to plant churches in it."