Church planting from a small church?

I have been getting this idea about our church planting a church. It is still in the dreaming/praying stage but I want to hear some input from all of you.

We are a church of about 40-50 on a Sunday morning. I have been here a year and we have gone through a number of changes and obstacles. One of the very positive things we have going for us is the a good number of younger and college age people attending the church who are highly involved. There excitement and momentum of this group is very helpful to who we will become long term. Many of them are not from the suburb we are from but are active in inviting their friends, many come and are excited about our vision for ministry but do not want to make the 45-60 minute drive to church every Sunday.

On the other side most of those from our community are long term members of the congregation but are not active in inviting friends or coworkers to the church, most of the excitement is being generated by the younger leaders. So I was praying and thinking about how to best use the excitement. I thought what about a church plant? If we pick a central location, closer to the heart of the city it might be very positive.

First it will unleash the creativity and excitement of the younger leaders and create the buzz of the "new" work. Second, getting some of our long term members involved again in something bigger then themselves and not "frozen" in the inside Christian culture that is full of stigmas and frustrations of the past. There has been a lot of hurt and many splits and fallouts through out the history of the church. It seems there is always talk about "they used to go here." This may be a kind of catalyst to bringing missional vitality back to the originating church.

In a few months we will be selling the parsonage at the church. This will create a pool of resources. The church has no debt. This money will be invested to help offset some costs as we are rebuilding the congregaton and the rest invested for a future physical building. I am wondering if it might not be a better use of resources to invest in a plant we do ourselves as well as a few other church plants. It seems as most new growth (not transfer growth) is happening in church plants (can't confirm this yet) other then established long term churches. Instead of investing for linear future growth, would it be better to invest in exponential growth in multiplication instead?

As I shared this vision with some the other night, many were very excited about the possibility. I have to admit, I am very excited about the idea as well.

What are your thoughts? Could this work? What obstacles might we have to overcome? Has this been done before? How were the results?

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