New Cowboy Church coming to Clinton!

This past Tuesday, January 19, there were over 40 who attended the first interest meeting for a new Cowboy church in Clinton.

Pray for Church Planter Eddie Ragsdale as he leads this new work.


Pray as they plan on beginning regular meetings early in February.


Pray that they would reach many unchurched cowboys and lovers of western heritage culture.


Praise the Lord for primary partner churches – First Baptist Shirley and First Baptist Clinton, and the North Central Baptist Association – and for their vision and commitment for reaching this group of people in their community.


Finally, Praise the Lord for the Cooperative Program gifts and Dixie Jackson Offerings which are helping with this new work!

10 Ways Your Church Can Be Involved in Church Planting Here in Arkansas

1- Pray – Join the Church Planting Prayer Network and pray weekly for church planting in Arkansas. Adopt a church plant and become a part of their prayer team, praying regularly for them and their needs. (to join – send an email to pray4churchplanting@absc.org)


2- Adopt a church planter and his family in your area. Be a friend to them. Take them to lunch or meet them for breakfast on a regular basis. Send them to a conference or retreat. Provide childcare so they can go out on a date with their wife.


3- Support the new work financially. Provide monthly support for the ongoing expenses. Put them in your church budget and/or take up special offerings to help meet their needs.


4- Provide materials and equipment. Do a “Baby Shower” for the new church, getting SS classes to supply various equipment or materials. (for a copy of the AR church planters wish list – email pray4churchplanting@absc.org)


5- Share your facilities. This might be for services on an ongoing basis, or for special events or meetings.


6- Send a volunteer team to assist a new church start. Help with a VBS or a community outreach. Prayerwalk or help canvas a neighborhood with flyers or invitations. Help with remodeling or work on a building, etc. (for a list of volunteer projects – email pray4churchplanting@absc.org)


7- Discover unreached or under-reached people in your own community. Who in your community is not being reached by your church or others? Do demographic research, a windshield survey, and questionnaires in your area. Determine if a new church start might be needed to reach the unchurched.


8- Start an outreach Bible study. Do an outreach event and begin a new Bible study, outside of your church walls, and assist the new believers into becoming a new church.


9- Encourage members in your church to pray, give and maybe even go and be a part of a new work (for a pre-determined time or indefinitely).


10- Become a mentor to a new church leader. Pastors can mentor new church pastors, youth ministers can mentor youth workers, teachers and lay leaders can mentor new church leaders.

Adapted from NAMB’s “10 Ways Your Church Can Become a Kingdom Builder”

"Tribes"

An interesting video about the need for new churches among the different "Tribes" all around us.

Where Do We Start?

Does church planting just happen, or is there some deliberate preparation and planning involved? From the perspective of a church planting strategist, there are some specific first steps involved in church planting.


• Prayer and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit is where all church planting should begin. These put us in touch with the Father and help us see the needs around us through His eyes.


• Another important aspect is that of observation and investigation. This involves both the study of the local churches and who they are reaching, and the study of the community in order to see who is not being reached. For this particular aspect of church planting there must be demographic research and surveys of local churches. There should also be some “community leader” and “man on the street” questionnaires developed in order to understand the unreached people who are discovered through investigation and research.


• According to North American Mission Board’s Peoples Search, the questions you want to answer are: Who are the unreached peoples in this area? Where are they? Why are they unreached? How is God working among the unreached peoples in this area? What will it take to reach them? Answering these questions will help in the development of a strategy to reach people through planting a church.


• When unreached people are discovered, then there must be a world view analysis of the particular group or groups of people that the Lord lays on your heart. It is in this particular type of study that the Lord begins to give you a vision for a church plant among a particular group of people. To understand a specific segment of the overall population of an area, we must ask these questions: Why are they in this area? What is their daily life like? What is important to them? What do they believe? What are their needs? What is keeping them from coming to Christ? What can we do to help them come to Christ? This helps us to see bridges and barriers we have to work with.


• After gathering this information, we must analyze the results and develop the best strategy for reaching them and involving them in a new church start. When God gives us a vision and we come to understand the people he wants us to reach, we can use the developed strategy to reach them through their hearts. This is done by developing relationships and meeting needs, which is loving them in the name of Jesus.


• When the strategy is in place we share the vision and strategy with others in order to develop partners to help us in the church planting endeavor.

Submitted by Gary D. Fulton, Church Planter Strategist on the Missions Ministries Team of the ABSC.