Church Planting

 September 1st, my family was officially approved by the Evangelical Free Church to plant a church in a nearby town and in early November it was officially announced at our current church where my dad serves as associate pastor. I've been meaning to blog about it for awhile, but it just hasn't happened. This week my dad posted on his blog about church planting, so here is the lowdown on the new adventure we are about to embark upon. 

"The blog has not received a lot of attention again lately as we have been devoting our efforts to transitioning ministries.  As of December 31, I will be leaving Chisholm Baptist to begin church planting work with the Evangelical Free Church in Virginia, Minnesota.  We have been privileged to be a part of Chisholm Baptist for the last five years, but we are excited about the call that God has placed on us to plant.


St. Louis County is the least churched county in the state of Minnesota.  Only 4% of the population is involved in an evangelical church.  In the Virginia area, there are roughly 40,000 people and only about 2 evangelical churches with an average attendance over 100 people.


Starting in January, we will be raising support, doing evangelism and discipleship in the community, and preparing our core groups training curriculum.  We covet your prayers.  I have established a prayer group on Facebook that is open to the public.  You can find it at “Iron Range Church Plant Prayer Partners.”


Also, we are currently scheduling visits to churches in January and February.  If your church would like our family to come and share our vision for church planting, please send me an email for more information.  While we do need individuals and churches to support this work during its startup, we would be willing to visit churches even if they do not have financial resources to join our financial support team.


Prayerlessness in American churches tends to be the norm.  We want to establish a culture of prayer in the DNA of this new church.  All the strategy, resources, and talent in the world cannot cause the regeneration of a single soul.  Unless God moves, we labor in vain.  Therefore, we invite you to join us in praying that God would pour out his Spirit in Northeastern Minnesota to cause the spiritually dead to be born again, to create a movement of new and healthy churches, and transform the region to one of spiritual deadness to one of spiritual vitality.  We pray that every day the Iron Range would move towards a greater reflection of the rule and reign of Jesus Christ in our communities!"

 Now, if you have any questions about planting, our plans, or the Iron Range, feel free to ask and I'll answer them for you guys. I know that to a lot of people, planting is a foreign idea and many people have lots of questions, but that's not bad! Asking questions is part of learning and I'm willing to answer them for you.