How can my church be a part of
SEND>>NORTH AMERICA
Every church can become a church-planting partner through Send North America. The level to which your church becomes involved is up to you. There are three levels of involvement and all are extremely important in planting churches across North America.
1. YOU CAN BE A SUPPORTING CHURCH
A supporting church partners with a plant through praying, participating and/or providing. Often there will be multiple supporting churches partnering with a particular plant filling different roles.
2. YOU CAN BE A SENDING CHURCH
A sending church reproduces itself by taking the initiative to plant a new church in an area of need and takes responsibility for partner recruitment and nurturing until the church is self-sustaining, self-governing and reproducing.
3. YOU CAN BE A MULTIPLYING CHURCH
A multiplying church plays a mentoring role in the church-planting process. This would take place in a church-based environment where multiple disciples are intentionally cultivated, selected, developed and supported to make disciples resulting in new churches.
As a supporting, sending and/or multiplying church, you’ll engage in one or more of these activities:
PRAYING
Commit to praying for a planter, city and region utilizing prayer resources supplied by NAMB and regional staff.
PARTICIPATING
Involve church members personally in ministry with the church planter. For example, your church may want to send mission teams to assist church plants or mobilize individuals within your church to be sent as short-or long-term missionaries as a part of the planting team.
PROVIDING
Your church’s Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® gifts provide support for church planting. However, new churches often face challenges and needs that exceed their limited budget resources. Becoming a partner church allows your congregation the opportunity to help supplement needs with additional, tangible gifts for specific church plants.
Those partners are desperately needed in the Indianapolis area, too. In recent years Fishers, the suburban Indianapolis community where Hamilton Village Church is located, has become a graveyard for evangelistic church plants of all denominations. Just four years ago all 12 elementary schools in the city had a church plant in them. Now only a few remain. Most died because of the community’s high cost of living and difficult evangelistic soil. Manning estimates that less than 15 percent of the community attends church on a typical weekend.
“I’d say the need for Jesus in Fishers has been overlooked by the people,” says Manning, who is no relation to the famous NFL quarterback who calls Indianapolis home. “They’re really good people, who are family-based. If they have needs, they’re used to buying or renting what they need.”
That’s why partners are critical, says Manning, who is also a North American Mission Board missionary. He compares the tough-to-reach Fishers community to running a marathon.
“If you’ve ever run in a marathon, there are water stations every so many miles,” Manning says.
20 Winter 2012 •
onmission.com
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