Books about church planting
Church Planting: Laying Foundations (1998) and Planting Churches: a framework for practitioners (2008) are two key books by Stuart Murray both published by Paternoster. The first lays a firm theological and historical foundation for church planting, whilst the second concentrates on the who, where, why, what, when and how of church planting.
Organic Church (2005) by Neil Cole and published by Jossey Bass sets out the church planting model of Church Multiplication Associates. It explains how anyone can become part of a church planting movement and the rationale behind small, organic churches that are easily reproduced. Though written from a US perspective its ideas have been taken up by many church planters across Europe.
Planting for the Gospel: A hands-on guide to church planting (2010) by Graham Beynon published by Christian Focus publications and Planting churches: changing communities (2009) by David Stroud and published by Authentic are two hands-on guides to church planting from a UK perspective. Whilst the first suggests a variety of models and includes case studies from a wide range of settings, the second is unashamedly a manual for planting NewFrontiers churches.
Total Church (2007) by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis and published by IVP. Whilst not strictly a book about church planting, Total Church presents the lessons learnt from The Crowded House, a household church plant based on community life. The Crowded House has now become an international planting network and this book has popularized the ideas of simple reproducible church planting.
Mission-shaped Church: church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context (2004) published by Church House Publishing is an attempt by the Church of England to wrestle with some of the challenges of church planting from an inherited church perspective. As such it is relevant to many other European contexts with established or historic churches. It is also one of the best treatments of the Fresh Expressions movement and the multitude of different ways in which ‘church’ is being expressed today.
Churches with roots: Planting Churches in Post-Christian Europe (1990) by Johan Lukasse and published by Monarch is now out of print. But if you can get a copy it is one of the best treatments of church planting in Europe and is written by a practitioner with many decades of experience of planting making it a rarity in every sense.