DEREK AND SHARLA OSBURN | CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO


NEW
HORIZONS
Missionary models healthy church planting By Joe Conway
Derek Osburn never set out to be a poster child for missional church staff members. He was minding his own business as a youth minister when God broadened his horizons.


The pivotal decision point for Osburn came at a New Mexico state evangelism conference where Ed Stetzer challenged the audience. Stetzer, vice president of research and ministry development at LifeWay Christian Resources, is a long-time church planter and church-planting advocate.


“He said you will not change your circumstances until the discomfort of staying outweighs the discomfort of leaving,” Osburn shares. “That was the turning point for me. I knew it was time to go.”


And by go Osburn thought he and his family would have to leave their home in Clovis, N.M., and start a church elsewhere. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt his church. Turns out the church, Central Baptist, had another idea.


In 2005 Osburn began wrestling with the concept of planting a church that would reach the unchurched in Clovis.


“I had this sense that we’re not going to reach everybody in our world at our church,” says Osburn. But from the beginning his concern was for the health of Central. He went so far as to resign and explore the possibility of planting a church in Oklahoma. A call from Central Baptist senior pastor Alan McAlister changed his plans. McAlister suggested Osburn try exactly what he was planning, but do it at Central.


“Why would we want to start another church?” asks McAlister. “Well, over 80 percent of the population of this county is lost.


ON MISSION • Spring 2012 33

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