A Regional Strategy to Community Transformation
by Steve Scudder, Director of Missions
Traditionally, planting a church focused on starting a single congregation in a key location. A committed couple would gather a few like-minded Christians and begin a weekly worship group. This group often resembled neighboring churches and usually sought to attract the same people.
The explosive growth of our area and the diversity of our community challenge us to move beyond a traditional strategy of planting to a regional approach. Rather than focusing on a single plant, we need to start a diverse cluster of churches through a church planting center.
A church planting center is a new congregation that creates a network of church plants. The center will focus on saturating this area and its diverse population with the Gospel, gathering different unchurched crowds and developing them into new congregations based upon affinity or ethnicity.
Vision Tour participants prayerwalk a possible location for an African American or multiethnic plant.
Here are some key components to a church planting center with a regional strategy:
1. Evangelism is the priority of this new congregation. The planting center understands clearly the Great Commission. Every decision is designed to reach a specific unchurched group and see it transform into a church rather than incorporating churched Christians into a new congregation.
2. Discipleship is designed to create missionaries not members. The church planting center is more focused on sending out its congregation to transform the community than it is in bringing in people to join its congregation.
3. From its first day, the church planting center strategizes how to plant new congregations. It seeks to plant at least one new congregation annually.
4. A gifted planting team rather than a single planting couple form the leadership of the planting center. Part of that team will leave the center in 6 to 12 months to start a new congregation.
5. The leader or senior pastor of the planting center serves as a mentor or planting coach for the region. The planting center itself becomes a learning lab for planting churches.
To succeed, this strategy must be bathed in prayer and supported by partners. On March 8, leaders of churches within and outside our association will gather to hear, pray about, and consider such a strategy. Pray that God will transform our community with the Gospel, raise up missionaries and churches to implement this transformation, and call you to join in the adventure. I hope to see you at Okatee Baptist Church on March 8.
