The Mature & Multiply Summit, held February 6-8 at Rosedale International Center, featured eight CMC congregations, each following one of three tracks: Church Planting, Recalibration, Ministry to Amish. Our three CMC agencies (CMC, Rosedale International, and Rosedale Bible College) collaborated for the event. Participating congregations were engaged and poised for action. We heard fantastic testimonies at Pastors’ Conference later that month of the initial results in their home communities.
At the same Pastors’ Conference, RI held a consultation designed to set our mission focus for the rest of the decade. Coming out of that consultation, several pastors sent suggestions on how to move the ball forward with church planting (CP). We invited them to attend online CP meetings to share in more detail. Those meetings have continued, resulting in a new, de facto CP team consisting of: Brian Hershberger, Steve Swartz, Darren Peachey, Jeremy Miller, Joe Showalter, Phil Swartzentruber, Daryl Driver, Ron Embleton, Scott Miller, and myself.
During these online meetings, several key themes have emerged:
- Ron shared his strong conviction that CMC pastors and congregations need to catch the vision for CP at a deeper level. What exactly is the problem we are trying to solve? Why is CP the answer to that problem? Unless we know that we have a problem – perhaps our very existence a generation from now – and can articulate why CP addresses that need, it will be very difficult to motivate people to the sacrificial obedience required to undertake this endeavor.
- Phil expressed his belief that CMC’s CP efforts need to have some central focus and impetus at the conference level. Although we still want to encourage individual congregations to take initiative to plant new churches, we do not feel this will be sufficient to reach our goal of 50 new congregations by 2030. We are sensing that CMC should have at least one or two locations where we focus our efforts on planting congregations or clusters of congregations.
- CMC needs to have a strong training program for those who will lead CP efforts. Daryl recommended a REACH type program for potential church planters. This could include training for various leadership roles – not just the senior pastor. Steve has emphasized that we should follow the apprenticeship model, something with a higher level of expectation than mentorship. We all think that RBC will play a central role in providing training. The new Training in Ministry (TiM) classes are key to this effort. The courses being developed utilize a comprehensive approach to learning that includes interactions with the instructor, classmates, personal mentors, and the course materials. Additionally, there will be a strong component of practical application of the principles learned rather than a mere academic exercise.
In the midst of these efforts, along came the coronavirus. Congregations quickly pivoted from an external focus to a crisis response mode. How can we hold services remotely, provide pastoral care to isolated church members, collect offerings, keep our staff paid, and help meet economic needs in our communities? As the first round of challenges subsided, a new batch of problems arose: How can we maintain love and unity within the body that is close to having a church split over the issues of whether or not to meet in person, maintain social distance, and require wearing of masks?
Even though COVID-19 has hindered some congregations from moving forward with CP right now, current efforts in other places are bearing fruit. Scott has seen several international students come to faith and has been holding Sunday services in a tent in his backyard in Morgantown, WV. Living Hope Ministries has moved forward with its relaunch in Watson, NY; Todd Waugh shared that they baptized ten new believers on August 16. Timothy Gakunju is leading efforts to start a new fellowship in Cincinnati, OH; seven families attended their service on August 23.
Challenged by how the first efforts to plant churches in non-Jewish communities were birthed in prayer (Acts 13:1-3), the CP team started meeting weekly over Zoom for prayer on Thursday mornings from 6:30-7:30 a.m. Eastern Time. We welcome all who are interested in CMC’s CP efforts to join us using this link: https://tinyurl.com/CMC-CP-Prayer. If you would like to join a prayer meeting but this time does not work for you, please contact me (jerry@rosedaleInternational.org) and we will seek to form another group at a different time and/or frequency of meeting.
