Think for a moment about your image of a church. Is it stained glass windows topped by a towering white steeple keeping watch over a town square? Certainly houses of worship like these remind us that God has a presence on our continent some might even say a significant presence, after scanning the Bible Belt of the South, where many church steeples punctuate the skyline.

In a growing number of communities in North America however, these images of church are fading away or never even existed in the first place. Population in most urban areas is growing at two or three times the rate of growth of new Protestant churches. In Rhode Island only one Southern Baptist church exists for every 131,000 peoplethe lowest church-to-population ratio in the United States. In Canada, that number increases to nearly 200,000 for every SBC church. Mississippi has the best church-to-population ratio with one SBC church for every 1,396 people.

Its not just a numbers problem. Increasingly, theres a need for language-specific churches and churches that will connect culturally with the population shifts in their areas.

A volunteer paints the steeple of a church on Dauphin Island, Alabama. photo by gibbs frazeur

So put away your picture of the church with stained glass and a steeple, and think instead of churches as redemption centers that build bridges to their communities. These bridges carry ministries that meet needs and take the gospel to new people. They energize Christians to go out and make new disciples. And they look for places that need new churches to meet more needs.

Together with state Southern Baptist conventions, the North American Mission Board (NAMB) has made church planting a major priority so that Southern Baptists now lead all denominations in new church starts. NAMB has adopted a goal of doubling the number of SBC churches to 100,000 by 2020.

Its a God-sized goal, says Richard Harris, NAMBs vice-president for Church Planting. It will absolutely be a supernatural movement of God when it happens. We believe thats what He can do and wants to do. And He can use us as well as other evangelical Christians to do it. To reach that goal of 100,000 SBC churches by 2020, Southern Baptists need to help start 2,200 new churches in 2002. Subsequent years call for adding 100 more new churches to the previous years goal, ultimately leading to a goal of 4,000 new church starts in 2020.

We know statistically that churches which are 10 years old or older average 2.5 baptisms per 100 resident members, says Harris. However, churches 10 years old or younger average 10.8 baptisms per 100 resident members. It doesnt take a crystal ball to see that if youre going to evangelize North America, church planting is essential. These new churches mayor may notlook like traditional Southern Baptist churches, buildings complete with stained glass windows, choir lofts and tall, white steeples. Many new churches meet in homes, schools or even shopping centers. But their presence cannot be underestimated, especially when millions of spiritually embattled people are seeking an eternal peace and hope found only in a personal relationship with Jesus.

Missionary Milvian Lema worships at Iglesia Bautista Marantha in Hialeah, Florida. photo by gibbs frazeur

The urban challenge

No setting more starkly represents the need for new churches than North Americas large cities. Many Protestant churches have abandoned cities for suburbia, and others have stayed in place and died, not able or not willing to change as the surrounding community has shifted. The result is that some of our largest cities are left with very few evangelical churches.

Church planting is primarily an evangelistic toolnew churches reach new people for Christso NAMBs Strategic Focus Cities (SFC) emphasis includes planting new churches, along with continued focus on strengthening existing churches.

SFC brings volunteers and other resources from Southern Baptists all across the nation and uses them to introduce people in the largest cities of the United States and Canada to Christ. The new and existing churches help new believers grow in their faith through involvement in local churches, many of which will start new churches, says Gary Frost, vice president of Strategic Partnerships.

In just two years, NAMBs SFC partnerships with local Southern Baptists have helped spawn church planting movements in Phoenix, Chicago, Las Vegas and Boston where a total of 169 new churches have been started and about 23,000 professions of faith have been recorded.

With a Kingdom vision, an evangelistic passion and a multiplication mindset of church planting, the results are speaking for themselves, adds Frost.

As part of the SFC strategy, large churches in one part of the country are planting churches in cities hundreds and even thousands of miles away. For example, a fully funded flagship congregation was planted last year in Las Vegas, jointly funded by NAMB and First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia. In Seattle and Philadelphia, SFC sites for 2002, plans call for starting dozens of ethnic churches among Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and African Americans who represent the majority of the unchurched populace in those areas.

In Philadelphia, a new church start under way through a partnership with First Baptist Orlando already has 300 members. And Southern Baptists response to New York City in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks has spawned church planting efforts there, jump-starting SFC efforts scheduled in that city for 2005.

Reaching Canada

As anemic as the church-to-population ratios appear in the northeast United States, New England looks like fertile ground for church planting compared to its neighbor farther north where most of Canada remains largely unchurched. Provinces such as New Brunswick (pop. 755,000) and Newfoundland (pop. 541,000) do not have a single Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists (CCSB) church. Only 13 of Canadas 25 largest cities have CCSB churches. Thirty-one cities with populations of 10,000 to 20,000-plus have no evangelical witness of any kind. Consequently, NAMB, in concert with the CCSB, has set a goal of planting 1,000 churches and baptizing 100,000 new believers in Canada by the year 2020.

To that end, Joe and Linda Ledford walked away from their careers three years ago as a journalist and beautician in northeast Tennessee, to follow Gods call to help start new churches in Prince Edward Island, Canada, a place where there was only one CCSB church for a thousand miles. Since moving to Canadas smallest province, Joe and Linda have helped establish two church-start missions by offering childrens ministries such as Bible clubs and evangelistic block parties.

Children will trust you, Joe says. Then the parents see us loving their children, and they begin to wonder who we are and why were here. Were here because of Jesus love. (For more information on the Ledfords church planting ministry go to______________.)

Finding the leaders

Recognizing that the fields are indeed ripe but the laborers few, NAMB is partnering with Southern Baptist seminaries to put more church planters where they are most needed. The Nehemiah Project places NAMB missionaries in all six Southern Baptist seminaries and the Canadian Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to offer specific training in church planting and to mobilize vocational church planters to meet the challenge. Because of this partnership, more than 500 church planter interns have been appointed since 1997 to serve in summer, semester and full-time capacities.

And as the number of vocational church planters increases, Southern Baptists are paying more attention to their unique spiritual needs, supporting them so they can do the work to which they are called. If there have been lone rangers in Christendom, it has been the church planters who have too often functioned in that capacity. Thrust into the untamed wilderness of unchurched North America, many have found church planting to be a lonely and difficult trekespecially as the church planter works outside the support system of an established congregation until the church is actually planted and takes root.

To further cultivate a church planting movement, NAMB, working in conjunction with its state partners has developed a mentoring program through which church planters can receive spiritual support. These mentors offer themselves as people who care as much about the church planter as the church plantknowing that the loss of a church planter will often mean the loss of a new congregation.

But even with efforts like the Nehemiah Project, NAMB recognizes that there will probably never be enough seminary-trained church planters alone to do the job of reaching our world for Christnor are there enough missionary dollars to fund the task should the church planters become available.

As a result, the practical advantages of enlisting laity for the cause are becoming more and more apparent. Tracing the lay church planting movement all the way back to the stoning of Stephen (when believers scattered in the wake of persecution, although the apostles and early church leaders remained in place), NAMB and its partners have invited those in church congregations to join them in the task of church planting. By raising the awareness of church planting needs and providing training, this strategy enables everyday Christians to fulfill their God-ordained role in the church planting movement.

Lay people are the crucial component, says Van Kicklighter, NAMBs Congregational Leader Development manager for lay church planters.

And most existing churches, he says, have members who possess spiritual gifts and skills that would make them excellent church plantersskills in teaching, equipping, leading and vision casting.

We need more lay people who will step up to the plate and say we will leave our comfort zone and help you impact this people group that hasnt been touched, says Kicklighter.

Through an established Church Planting Network facilitated by NAMB, lay leaders can receive encouragement, advice and prayer support in their church planting endeavors by those who have been there and done that. NAMB also offers a web site created specifically for those involved or interested in church planting, www.thevillage.cc. This website is a virtual church planting community where users can interact in chat rooms as well as access the latest research and cutting-edge church planting resources. Church planters will also find the Church Planting Management System, available on CD-ROM, a unique tool in organizing a new church start.

Prayer support

Equipping and mobilizing lay leaders, providing vocational training, reaching ethnic groups and cities are all critical components for meeting the ambitious goal of 100,000 Southern Baptist churches by 2020. Yet all of these strategies will yield little, if any, lasting fruit without prayer. Seeking Gods direction in this colossal endeavor allows NAMB and state partners to focus their energy and resources where God is already at work. After all, unless God builds His church, His people labor in vain.

As someone once said, prayer is not preparation for the work, prayer is the work of ministry, and it certainly is true in the arena of church planting, says John Yarbrough, vice president of Evanglization. Its foundational to what we do, but it also must permeate all we do precede, permeate and follow everything we do. Consequently, an important question for assessing the need for a new church start is simply, Who are you not reaching? 

Matching churches to population

Urban areas are becoming increasingly diverse ethnically. Immigrants who have come seeking economic prosperity and new opportunities seek out pockets in a city where they feel culturally at home. Young professionals are returning to cities bringing new money and cultural rebirth. From block-to-block and even from one apartment complex to the next, the ethnic, economic and cultural mix can make major shifts.

These new realities make it almost impossible for one church to reach so many different types of people. That kind of diversity requires new churches who can specifically relate to whatever group of people they are trying to reach.

Ethnic congregations are increasing exponentially, many springing from cross-cultural church planting efforts. This means churches intentionally are planting congregations unlike themselves in an effort to match the characteristics of a changing population, trying to minister across language, race and socio- economic barriers. Of the new Southern Baptist church starts last year, some 40 percent were classified as language and ethnic congregations.

For example, in Seattle a Southern Baptist Korean congregation is sponsoring a new church start for Native Americansa congregation that has become one of the associations most exciting new churches.

That ethnic diversity is already being reflected in existing Southern Baptist churches, where the gospel is presented in about 110 languages in more than 7,000 ethnic congregations meeting all over North America during any given week.

Starting new ethnic churches is critical because otherwise many would not be assimilated into existing churches. For example, studies have shown that many African Americans prefer congregations formed in consideration of their unique cultural characteristics over assimilating into existing churches.

And while cross-cultural church planting is having some success, even more productive is the practice of strategically placing ethnic leaders who can more effectively reach their culture with the gospel. Convinced that leadership training is the lifeblood of the future church, NAMB partners with seminaries to offer Contextual Leadership Development (CLD) centers that equip Christian leaders with skills and methods that are effective and meaningful within their culture.

For example, in Arizonas border town of Douglas, a local Spanish-speaking church has trained several church leaders through its CLD center, many of whom have gone on to pastor churches. With courses offered in their own language and on site, CLD centers equip Christian leaders to continue to meet the needs of their own people group and broaden their efforts. Currently, there are about 150 CLD centers throughout the country.

Even with all the resources, support and strategies, Richard Harris admits that the degree this church planting movement impacts North America and Canada is contingent solely on the willingness of followers of Christ to step out in obedience to a clear biblical mandate.

Healthy Christians should be reproducing other Christians through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit just like healthy churches should be reproducing other churches, says Harris.

When God shows us a need, He has already met that need if we will get on His agenda. And Gods will is Gods bill when it comes to any task on His agenda.