Church Planting Question

[Tsquared]

Praise the Lord everyone, I hope you are all doing well and keeping safe during these times. The reason why I am posting this thread is to get some ideas for church planting. I am a younger minister and my wife and I have not planted a church before. Where we live is a rural/remote community with not many churches at all in the area. My career brought me to this small community, and my wife and I do feel that God is impressing on us to start a church here; however, we really don't now where to even start. It is only my wife and I currently, we don't have a lot of contacts in the community, however I have been trying to be active out in the community to meet others (which has been difficult with COVID-19). This is why I am reaching out to you all.

So, what steps should we take to start reaching/connecting with people? What type of venue should we meet in (when we are able to meet)? I am quite musical (play bass, piano, & guitar), so I was thinking of maybe starting a Christian Jam night or something to start making contacts. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thank-you in advance for reading this and providing your insight. God bless!

 

[Tolworth John]

Praise the Lord everyone, I hope you are all doing well and keeping safe during these times. The reason why I am posting this thread is to get some ideas for church planting. I am a younger minister and my wife and I have not planted a church before. Where we live is a rural/remote community with not many churches at all in the area. My career brought me to this small community, and my wife and I do feel that God is impressing on us to start a church here; however, we really don't now where to even start. It is only my wife and I currently, we don't have a lot of contacts in the community, however I have been trying to be active out in the community to meet others (which has been difficult with COVID-19). This is why I am reaching out to you all.

So, what steps should we take to start reaching/connecting with people? What type of venue should we meet in (when we are able to meet)? I am quite musical (play bass, piano, & guitar), so I was thinking of maybe starting a Christian Jam night or something to start making contacts. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thank-you in advance for reading this and providing your insight. God bless!

To state the obvious you need to make contact with people, so anything that enables you to do this, music sessions, joining the local sports team, amater dramatics etc etc.
One suggestion from the navigators is to talk to people about God, Bible etc and to let them know you enjoy doing Bible studies and that since moving here you don't have one to attend, are they interested?

If you can get a couple of Bible studies running with half a dozen people in each after a while you could float the idea of meeting on a Sunday for worship.

 

[Tsquared]

To state the obvious you need to make contact with people, so anything that enables you to do this, music sessions, joining the local sports team, amater dramatics etc etc.
One suggestion from the navigators is to talk to people about God, Bible etc and to let them know you enjoy doing Bible studies and that since moving here you don't have one to attend, are they interested?

If you can get a couple of Bible studies running with half a dozen people in each after a while you could float the idea of meeting on a Sunday for worship.

Thanks so much for your comments/ideas, I appreciate it!

 

[Aldrin25]

Do it online first, people who are near or live to that area. It's crisis worldwide.

 

[TheNorwegian]

I would love to connect with you. I have assisted a fair number of church plants in rural areas/small towns. This is in Europe though, so probably a bit different from North America. Still, here should be things to learn from one another. Please, send me a PM if you want to connect

 

[Tsquared]

Do it online first, people who are near or live to that area. It's crisis worldwide.

Thanks for your input! That's a very good idea to try to start up online, I will look into it.

 

[Tsquared]

I would love to connect with you. I have assisted a fair number of church plants in rural areas/small towns. This is in Europe though, so probably a bit different from North America. Still, here should be things to learn from one another. Please, send me a PM if you want to connect

Thanks so much for your reply, sorry I just saw it now! Sent you a PM, looking forward to connecting.

 

[Ecclesiasticus]

Praise the Lord everyone, I hope you are all doing well and keeping safe during these times. The reason why I am posting this thread is to get some ideas for church planting. I am a younger minister and my wife and I have not planted a church before. Where we live is a rural/remote community with not many churches at all in the area. My career brought me to this small community, and my wife and I do feel that God is impressing on us to start a church here; however, we really don't now where to even start. It is only my wife and I currently, we don't have a lot of contacts in the community, however I have been trying to be active out in the community to meet others (which has been difficult with COVID-19). This is why I am reaching out to you all.

So, what steps should we take to start reaching/connecting with people? What type of venue should we meet in (when we are able to meet)? I am quite musical (play bass, piano, & guitar), so I was thinking of maybe starting a Christian Jam night or something to start making contacts. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thank-you in advance for reading this and providing your insight. God bless!

Hello Tsquared, agree this is so much more difficult with COVID-19 since the essence of planting a new church is outreach and engagement, on a very personal and emotional level, and that's difficult to do now. With that said, several in my circle have still been having some success, chiefly in Europe where our efforts have been mainly based. Many in my group (Americans, joining up with several Canadians, Australians, South Africans and Brazilians who've moved to Europe) have focused their European ministries specifically on new church planting and had great success. They all agreed that the linchpin success is close engagement and embrace with the local communities, not only speaking their language but also being in close touch with community leaders and the rank and file about what most concerns them. Helping to bring the Gospels to them in a personal way with immediate relevance. In Europe, the effort was assisted by successful efforts to convert Syrian, Turkish, North African, Kurdish, Bosnian and Albanian refugees, who were among the most enthusiastic worshipers and helped to bring the Good Word both to their own communities and the surrounding district, and provided much of the original congregation. But in general the keystone to all this was outreach and really feeling the pulse of the community and its concerns. These days a lot of this is being done on Zoom or Skype, but it's still doable to the extent that the community is simply using these tools to communicate the same sorts of things as before.