A recent denominational survey conducted by Exponential Australia contains some very good news for the Australian Church.

Some fascinating insights have recently come to hand about what denominational leaders believe are the most critical issues in seeing church planting and ultimately multiplication take off in Australia.

When asked the question “What would help the most for your denomination / network to plant more churches” the most common answer was “having more people wanting to plant”.

It comes as no surprise that when asked “What are the biggest obstacles you face in relation to planting more churches?” the answer was similar: “not having enough leaders to plant”.

Seeing more men and women equipped and sent into the harvest to plant new churches is the big issue just as Jesus said it would be in Luke 10:1,2.

Other key issues identified in the survey were not enough churches willing to give birth, lack of funding, inadequate strategic planning, the vision for church planting taking root, struggling and small congregations, assistance with equipping and suitability assessments and finding suitable buildings.

The survey undertaken by Exponential Australia so far covers approximately 4000 Australian churches who report having planted 114 churches in 2023 and believe that they will plant 128 churches in 2024 which would equate to new churches at the rate of 3.2% of current churches being planted.

This is a huge improvement on the figures NCLS reported in 2019 where only 1% of churches planted new churches that year and indicates that the number of churches planted by the denominations surveyed will show an increase of 12% from 2023 to 2024.