9Marks Journal: Church Mergers and Plants (70-72期：教会合并与教会植堂)

Church mergers and church plants represent good news and bad news. The bad news is that it seems more and more churches are declining and in need of a restart. Church plants represent the good news: we have a bourgeoning supply of young pastors who desire to give themselves to the raising up and shepherding of God’s flock. And because we have more prospective pastors than open pulpits, we plant churches. Praise God for this “problem”! 9Marks isn’t primarily in the business of offering church planting wisdom. We’re not a planting ministry. Nonetheless, we want to think briefly about what our DNA means in this context. Perhaps the most important thing we can say is what Nathan Knight and Matt McCullough say in their articles: a church plant is a church, and a church planter is a pastor. This Journal considers church planting—its loneliness, its effect on sending churches, its demand for creativity in the midst of financial difficulty.

教会合并与教会植堂代表了好消息和坏消息。坏消息是似乎越来越多的教会正在衰退和急需重启。教会植堂同时也代表着好消息：我们有一群年轻的牧师，他们渴望献身于神羊群的成长和牧养上。也因为我们的潜在牧师要比公开的讲坛要多，所以我们建立教会。我们为这个“问题”赞美神！

九标志事工的首要目的不是提供教会植堂的智慧。我们不是一个植堂的机构。尽管如此，我们还是希望有一些简单的思考——在这种情况下我们的DNA有何意义。也许我们能说的最重要的事情就是内森·奈特和马太·麦卡洛在他们文章中所表达的了：《如果你连教会是什么都不清楚，就无法植堂》和《植堂需要的是牧者，不是创业者》。

这期期刊关注的是教会植堂——它的孤独，对差派教会的影响，以及在经济困难中对创造力的需求。关于如何建立一间新的教会，我们也会提供一些创造性的建议。但是我们不会只关注这些，我们也会关注马太·戴维森和柯林·克拉克的文章。

我们的世界需要更多健康的教会，这意味着我们的世界需要更多忠心的牧师：忠心的植堂（开始新的教会）和合并教会（在不健康中带来健康的东西）。每一个操练带来的是祝福和挑战；每一个需要都同样依赖于传道、祷告和传福音。

我们还有更多要说的，希望你们继续阅读。