When we talk about planting a church, we are envisioning a long term task that has nothing to do with a building. We are talking about getting people saved and helping them grow in their relationship with God and eventually appointing elders over the maturing church. "Building a church" evokes a mental image of a work project in which people erect a structure where believers can meet together.
Unfortunately, in our culture it has become very prevalent to think that we can take a two week trip to some other country, do some skits, paint kids' faces, show the Jesus film, and hundreds of people will get saved. However, this is not the case. We must always remember not to just assume that people have become Christians when we don't know what they understand of the gospel.
"How do these two things relate to each other?" you might ask. Well here is the connection. The gentleman who unknowingly and unwittingly sparked this question in my mind was simply telling me of some missions trips he had been on. Please don't get me wrong...I think it is great that Americans are willing to build things and do projects for people in other countries. The thing that concerned me was that he used the terms "building a church" and "planting a church" synonymously.
And so I am left wondering if he thought that simply building a church was basically the same as learning the language and culture of the target people group, teaching them the Bible from creation to the cross, discipling the believers, and eventually appointing elders. I doubt he really thought through the implications. However, I still see undue emphasis on short term missions trips intended for evangelism. How can you communicate the gospel clearly to someone if you don't know their language, their culture, or their worldview and you have built no relationship of trust with them? Those are the obstacles of cross-cultural church planting. But no church buildings, skits, or face painting are going to make people Christians any more than looking at a beautiful photograph of scenery will tell you who took it.