Planting

Why Plant Churches in Pittsburgh/ Southwestern Pennsylvania?

Pittsburgh is the 22^nd largest city in the United States with a population of 2.3 million people in the metro area. Although Pittsburgh is said to be the third most religious city in America, less than 5% of the population claim to be Evangelical Christians. There is much religion in the ‘Burgh, but very few people have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. It is possible that the greatest obstacle to the spreading of the gospel message in the city is the stronghold of stale religion.

Pittsburgh is a city with an identity crisis. While, technically, being a part of the Northeast, the ‘Burgh has an almost mid-western feel about it. It also has a small town feel to it. Perhaps it should not be seen as the 22nd largest city in America, but as 1600 boroughs, each with their own distinctive ethnic and religious uniqueness’s clustered together. There are 130 identifiable people groups in the metro area. There is a need for church plants of almost any style, personality, ethnicity, culture within the metro area. We are seeking the Lord daily to answer our prayer found in Luke 10:2, “He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” We are seeking radically Biblical church planters, called by our Lord to assist in making it hard to go to hell from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! Could you be the answer to our prayers?

How do I begin the process?

*Assessment, Am I really called to do this? www.pennjerseycp.com

*Basic Training for Church Planters, approximately 21 hours of intensive training designed to lay the foundation for the planter to begin developing a viable strategy for the plant.

*Partners, begin to seek out individuals, churches, associations, state conventions, and SBC boards and agencies that will assist the planter through prayer, people, and paper (funds).

*Supervisors/Mentors, seek out someone who will be asking the planter about the plant and someone who will be asking the planter about the planter.

*Church Planter Networks (CPN’s), monthly gatherings of planters who experience together peer learning, prayer for one another and mutual support from others who know where you are.

For more information, contact:

Stan Smith

Director-Division of Missions
Baptist Convention of PA/SJ
ssmith@brnonline.org
717-497-6973, Mobile
www.baswp.org

How To Get Started:

Interested in checking to see if you might be a candidate to plant a church in Southwestern Pennsylvania? Go to www.pennjerseycp.org and complete the Discovery nTools questionnaire and someone will follow up with you.

We will then be sending you more detailed questionnaires, etc. When all these have been received, we will schedule a 3-4 hour assessment interview with you and your wife to evaluate thirteen behavioral characteristics in your life. These are not the characteristics you would like to have or hope to develop in your life, but they will be based upon what you have done in your life to this point. We believe that past behavior is a good predictor of future performance.

After the assessment interview, someone will meet with you to go over the results of the process. This is not so much pass or fail, to see how we can come alongside you to help you be successful. We have a ninety percent success rate for church planting in PA/SJ.

Then we will assist you in finding a suitable mentor/supervisor. The supervisor will be asking questions regarding your church plant. The mentor will be asking questions about the planter. We want to minimize your feelings of isolation.

We will also assist you in enlisting partners to support your church planting effort. These usually take three forms: prayer, people and paper. These may come from local churches, churches with whom you have a relationship, individuals, state conventions and agencies and boards. If you cannot articulate the vision for this church plant in such a way to secure partner support, perhaps you need to re-think this whole enterprise.

Periodically, we offer Basic Training for Church Planting. This is twenty-one hours of intensive training in what it takes to plant a church. Obviously we cannot cover all aspects of the process in the short amount of time. It is our desire to provide you with the raw materials with which to build a strategy for your church plant.

We are currently working on a way to do more intensive training in fund raising for church planting and for systems development training necessary for a healthy church.

We also provide monthly Church Planter Networks (CPN’s) throughout our nine county area where you can gather with like-minded planters for training, fellowship and encouragement.

It is our desire to put around you a group of supportive fellow servants of our Lord so that if you stumble, someone will surely be there to steady your steps. We have a 90% success rate for church planting in PA/SJ.