Every church was at some point a church plant … including your own.
Every church shares one thing in common … a beginning. Church Planting is a Biblical pattern for mission. Your church is part of a rich history. It was started at one point in time. And because it was, each of you has been touched. So have untold others through the years. Now we have the opportunity to do for others what others first did for us. We can take the same spirit that founded our existing congregations and establish other congregations committed to living out the hope of Jesus Christ in word and deed.
The positive impact of Church Planting
- NWC churches started since 2000 are home to thousands of attendees and hundreds of new believers.
- We have many new potential plants in the works with the ultimate goal of seeing 50 new churches started by 2025.
- These new churches are reaching neighborhoods and people groups we would find difficult to reach any other way.
- Our new churches add strength, health and greater diversity to our growing family in the Northwest Conference.
- New churches are often pioneers in becoming agents of compassion in their communities, and catalysts for neighborhood transformation and justice. New church planting accounts for the majority of new community-based ministries in the Covenant.
- Planting new churches is evidence of our undeniable love for the unchurched. Our new churches are reaching a significant group of people who are not part of any faith community.
Essentially, Church Planting is a nearby mission project
In Acts 1:8, Jesus gives the map of mission when He says, “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
On the mission map, Jerusalem is equivalent to where we live. It is, and remains, the primary focus of our energies. Then, together with over 800 other Covenant churches, we have developed an “ends of the earth” world mission enterprise twice as large as the Covenant in North America. So, we are strong here and far away. Church Planting helps us fill in the map of mission by reaching into neighboring communities (our Judea) and cross-cultural contexts (our Samaria).