What I Chose For This Church Planting Project

I chose to do my religious ethnographic study at my home church, Tabernacle Baptist Church in Youngstown, Ohio on Sunday, May 8, 2016. Tabernacle is an 112-year-old historic Black Baptist church located on the lower Northside of Youngstown surrounded by a mixed income housing development, homeless shelter, Youngstown State University, and St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. I would say the average age of a Tabernacle member is 55 years old. About 70% of the members at this church are “middle-class” families. Until about five years ago, its membership was almost exclusively middle class. There has seen an influx of membership in working class individuals and students since the arrival of Tabernacle’s young, vibrant pastor, Rev. Christopher McKee, Jr., three years ago. The church is attentive to the needs of this demographic but remains true to its historic Black Baptist church roots. The church previously struggled with this conundrum until it came to the reality that an exclusivist mindset around worship is detrimental to the body of Christ when it did not have a pastor for over three years. The church was dying because no one was welcome to it and it did not have a leader. Though it was difficult, this reassessment was beneficial in making Tabernacle more relevant and welcoming to the community it is blessed to serve.

There are many events that have shaped my life and also cause me to pursue academic work and create goals here are Colorado Christian University. The one that stands out the most is my recent church planting experience and my desire to learn more about the Lord and become better equipped biblically to serve my parishioners. In this essay I will discussion how this major event has transformed my life and also cause me to venture further in my education and seek a degree here at Colorado Christian University (CCU). As a husband, a father of five, and a Pastor, I maintain a pretty busy lifestyle. But one things for sure is that I have always had a tug to finish my degree. My wife is a great supporter of education and has always encouraged me to finish what I

After reading the lecture notes church structure chart, I would say that my church falls between the attractional and organic view of small groups. We have an amazing new building that has a “come and see” feel; but, we also believe in relational missional groups that go out in the community. We believe that all gifts are needed in the body of Christ. We believe in forward movement, so we do count people and dollars. But our real success is measured in life change. We have a large budget that supports the staff and property, but a large portion of that budget

What do trends indicate about the future of Black Rural Churches? (Chapter 5) Trends indicate this about the future of Black Rural Churches. It has gradually but noticeable reverse migration among black people to the South and the sunshine states of the Southwest. The primary reasons are the search for jobs and the continued industrialization of the South. Extended family ties provide another motivation to move. Most black people in the North have relatives in southern states, and many of them still consider the south as home. However, the reverse migration will not match the previous out-migrations, it will most likely increase the black population base of the South and provide a potential constituency for some rural churches. Finally, the growing class split in the black community are increasing (Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya

One organization that is becoming increasingly popular, is the new youth church. These churches are made up primarily of young adults; those that attend gain a sense of belonging by their family-like structures and “cell groups”. They also dabble with the postmodern and nontraditional ways of worship, to attract outsiders, and they have a strong emphasis on missionary work.

I joined the staff of the Carolina Missionary Baptist Church in March 2002 as a church administrator. My first major responsibility was to complete the development and construction of the Family Life Center. Although, I had worked on development projects in another County before, I had not actually managed the construction of a building and certainly did not know the process in Prince George’s County Maryland where the church is currently located. There was an enormous amount of knowledge for me to gain. My first assignment was to develop a detailed plan. The initial undertaking in the plan was to learn the Construction process.

Gary United Methodist Church is a small congregation of less than fifty members with an average worship attendance of ten or less. The congregational leaders, known as the administrative council, are looking for ways to increase attendance, which has been dwindling over the last few decades, and find new ways to engage in mission work in their small northern Minnesota community of less than 3,000. A decrease in employment opportunities over the last thirty years and the shutdown of two major employers in the town have led to the mass exiting of families with children. The town has several properties that are either condemned or dilapidated. Recently their schools combined with a neighboring town to offset the lack of enrollment and suspend the closing of both sets of schools.

Blessed beyond compare, God has initiated me into a community of faith! Surrounded by believers of Christ, I’ve become a well-rounded individual, and a contributing member of society. First Baptist Church of Merrifield has instilled patients, love, compassion, and most importantly the foundation of faith that leads me to do great things. Just as the Lord has blessed me with education, life, and health, I plan on giving back to other as he continues to do for me. In the capacity of the next 20 years, I will mentor youth, start a non profit organization to compel bulling, and advocate for economic change to work toward closing the income gap between minorities and there Caucasian counterparts.

Base of the different church structure mentioned, there’s no conclusive evident that one church model is better than the others, it’s a matter of prefer to the believers on which model they will follow. The scripture show no evident that any one model should be followed. Whatever model a believer chooses cannot prove by scripture that their model is mandated. The only visible scriptural goal for all the models would have a structure that is harmonious, has revelation of God’s plan and should be use according to His purpose. An ideal church structure is nearly impossible from what I can see. Unless we go back to Eden, where it all begin and change what Adam and Eve did in the garden, church structure will always be flawed. Free will has changed God’s plan for man, and there will always be people who will not transform by the renewing of their minds. The NT only speaks about Jesus’ church, also known as Ecclesia from two words. Ek means “out” and kaleo means “to call”, so the gathering of the called-out believers is the Church. The ideal church structure would be the believers who are called-out to represent Jesus’s church. Scripture does not mention the traditional church, organic church, hybrid church, or the attractional church (Gray, 2012). In my opinion the simple church would be more ideal for me. Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger confirmed through a case study on churches that the kingdom is expanding through churches with simple process and the more complex

Keller critiques a detailed a four stage model of how Christianity can cultivate the culture. They are relevance, transformations, counterculturalist, and two kingdoms. Keller insist that ion order to a center church, you must have an equal balance of all four stages. As he began to wrap up the book Keller writes about church planting. It is very interesting to read because Keller is a very successful church planter. He has assist with plants in many denominations locally in Manhattan and abroad. Keller states, “New church planting is the best way to increase the number of believers in a city, and one of the best ways to renew the whole body of Christ”

The Light House Christian Ministries is a Christ-centered non-profit ministry. They serve all their neighbors in need by providing educational services, food services, resale shop, benevolence ministries and medical ministries. Lighthouse Christian Ministries is a non-denominational Christian Outreach dedicated to assisting their neighbors in need. They are dedicated to serving each individual with respect and love, through Christ. The Light House uses the resale shop to fund the overhead expenses of the ministry. It also receives contributions from individuals, churches, and private grants to fund the programs and services offered to the community. We will identify how the Light House views, and address the

Preaching Context: Rural congregation that practice very traditional worship, services. The church is politically and theologically conservative and predominantly white straight. People in the community are white farms and immigrant farm workers. White people are experiencing problems of gangs, drugs, and alcoholism. There is a need to reach out immigrant families who are laboring workers in that community.

For many large church-planting organizations, early assessment and the initial phases of coaching are interwoven and constantly informing one another. For example, church planting leaders will set up informal meetings over coffee or a meal to ask questions of a potential planter to learn more about them while at the same time offering suggestions and insights appropriate to the candidate’s particular situation. The scope of church planting opportunities is still broad at this stage, so the expertise of a church planting leader can help a candidate hone in on what is most important. This is also the opportunity for a leader to discern any big life situations or roadblocks to planting that may mean the timing is not right to go any further with the process until those things are resolved.

Things that lay influence on various models used in planting of churches include: one is denominational ecclesiology, two is if a mission agency or church is carrying out the actual planting, three is the planting body ethos, four is the spiritual and theological planting body outlook, five being the direct correlation of factors to the context which includes a community/area sociological understanding of where the church is to be planted and six is the planting team size. The terminology employed in describing the different planting models are divergent and a lot of terms are gotten from the obstetrics or horticulture world, but others are derived from the military, nautical and astronomical worlds (Murray, Laying Foundations, 260). Christine groups planting models in terms of the body performing the sponsoring say the agency, church or any other body (Robinson and Christine, Planting tomorrow’s Churches Today, 126). Murray defines four historical church planting categories: one is the replacement planting where it is conducted in places where the church is being closed, two is the pioneer planting which is done in places where there are no Christian witnesses, three is the saturation planting that mainly concerns with ensuring that each group of people that is identifiable has unlimited church access which has relevance on a contextual basis, and the fourth and last one is the sectarian planting that ensures an

One more church in the community that is working to improve the lives of local residents is St. Michael’s Lutheran Church (I. Clarke, personal communication, March 17, 2017). Similar to Market Square Presbyterian, it attracts members from the city and the surrounding area. While it organizes direct service programs, such as its outreach to families experiencing homelessness and its day camps for at-risk youths, its most striking initiative is its Criminal