Across Montana we are seeing churches step up and begin to take local ownership for planting new churches and replanting churches that have closed.
I am driven by one mission: helping churches plant churches across Montana everywhere for everyone. My desire is to see new churches reach the lost with the gospel, make disciples and then develop leaders to be sent out to the harvest field to plant new churches! What a calling to join God in His redemptive work to expand His kingdom all across Montana, North America, and the nations.
As a church planter and as a lead pastor in couple of churches in Montana that was my passion, to plant churches in towns and in parts of a community that did not have a gospel centered church!
Church planting isn’t a side activity or an optional ministry strategy—it’s the heartbeat of the New Testament. Through church planting, we step into the story God is writing to see His kingdom expand just like Paul and the early church embraced: engaging communities with the gospel, making disciples, raising up leaders, and sending them out to plant and pastor new churches and/or replant churches.
So, what can you and your church do to join in God’s kingdom activity through church planting in Montana?
Here is the Church Mobilization Pathway to help you and your church determine where you currently are and what next steps you can take.
Cooperating Church– Help fuel the Great Commission by praying for planters and investing financially in the primary SBC offerings.
The single greatest thing we do together is invest cooperatively to advance the kingdom of God in Montana and around the world by giving to the Cooperative Program and to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, your church can support thousands of church planters across North America as they share the hope of the gospel.
The mission of God cannot be accomplished without the hard work of intentional prayer.
Supporting Church – Partner with a church plant by praying, participating, or providing for their needs.
Church planters need more than just one primary sending church – they need multiple supporting churches who will take their responsibility seriously, find intentional ways to pray, participate, and provide for a new church plant’s needs.
You can send a small group of volunteer teams to help do outreach, block parties, provide care and encouragement for the church planter’s family. J.D. Greear, lead pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, N.C, led his church before they became a multiplying church by first becoming a supporting church that provided resources for new churches.
Your church can become becoming a supporting church. one of our new church planters in Montana:
- Thomas & Angela Argent, The Bridge Church, Gallatin Gateway
- Todd & Heather Hickox, Bridger Church, Bozeman (launching Easter)
- David & Cheryl Stahlman, Hopebridge Church, Glendive
- Stormy & Nicole Tuffield, Boulder Valley Baptist Church, Boulder (launching Easter)
- Joel & Wendi Murphy, Sweetgrass Mission, Big Timber (launching Easter)
And as you and your church pray, you may just find that God is calling you to do more, like becoming a Sending Church!
Sending Church – Take responsibility for a church plant by sending them and ensuring they get the preparation, coaching, and care they need.
No matter the size of your church, you can have heart for a people and a place. You can send out a planter and/or pray for the Lord to provide. Many times, churches send the most involved ministry leaders to start another work.
But as God provides for the new church plant, you can trust Him to provide new ministry leaders for your church as well. If you and your church will commit, you will find that you can’t ever outgive God.
To develop a vision and plan for leading your church to become a Sending Church, sign up for Montana’s first Sending Lab, Helena, MT
Multiplying Church – Develop church planters or church planting teams and send them.
God’s primary plan to reach the nations is the multiplication of disciples and churches.
While consistently finding people from within your church to send out to plant or replant new churches may seem intimidating or even impossible, there are practical steps every pastor can take to start identifying and developing potential pastors and planters. Calling out the Called to ministry during a sermon invitation, to creating a role for a pastoral assistant in your church, can make a big difference in creating a culture and sending capacity of your church.
Movement Church – Radically multiply and catalyze other churches to plant churches.
These are churches who have developed the systems and processes to consistently multiply by sending planters and teams from their churches.
You can multiply the kingdom impact of your church by not only sending church planters and/or replanters from within your church, but by helping other churches do the same. Last year we heard at MPact from Pastor Mark Hallock, Calvary Church, Englewood, Colorado, who has planted and replanted over 35 churches. They are not a big church!
My main goal serving in Montana is creating a culture within our churches for local ownership, farm systems, new churches being planted, and churches mobilized to partner and plant across Montana. Let me know how I can serve you as together we reach the growing harvest field all across Montana.
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