COVER SECTION
Church Planting Partnerships
A sustaining force in a planter’s marathon race
By Tobin Perry
Church planter Tony Manning can do a lot with a church of 60. He can canvass the neighborhood and pray for people door-by-door. He can mobilize his church to share its faith in the community. He and the church can host a “Parents’ Night Out” to help out young families in the area and introduce them to the church.
But strengthening marriages in the church and helping broken marriages outside of it through a marriage conference would have been a tall order for Hamilton Village Church in Fishers, Ind., just outside of Indianapolis.
That’s when one of the church plant’s partners, Highview Baptist Church from Louisville, Ky., pitched in to help. “We sent young couples from our church on a family mission trip to help Tony put together a marriage conference,” says Corey Abney, a teaching pastor at Highview who taught the seminar. “We want to be there to help the church planters with whom we partner in any way they need. This was just one example of that.”
Last summer’s marriage retreat was the third mission trip by Highview members to help the church plant. Both trips involved entire families—engaging dads, moms and kids at the same time. Through the trips, Highview provided much-needed manpower for evangelistic ministry projects to help Hamilton Village reach its community and disciple its members. That’s just been one part of the comprehensive partnership that Highview has provided to Hamilton Village. The church regularly prays and financially supports the ministry, as well.
It’s that kind of partnership the Send North America: Indianapolis coalition hopes to multiply among other church planters in the years to come. The coalition—made up of local Southern Baptists, state convention partners, and representatives of out-of-state churches—wants to connect church planters with strong, established churches who can help them through prayer, mission teams and resources. Send North America: Indianapolis will officially launch Dec. 5, 2011.
18 Winter 2012 •
onmission.com
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