These current at this yr’s Basic Meeting may recall a startling statistic: 2023 was the primary yr within the PCA’s historical past that denomination misplaced extra church buildings than new church buildings particularized. This stat is jarring, however it’s not the top of the story. Devoted, brave brothers and sisters are nonetheless planting church buildings, spreading the gospel, and making church accessible to new believers and non-believers. Within the first half of 2024, six new church buildings had been particularized within the PCA. Listed below are their tales.
King’s Cross Group Church – Springboro, Ohio
Casey Cramer got here to religion when a teammate on the Carolina Panthers launched him to Christ. After retiring from the NFL, Cramer attended Covenant Theological Seminary the place he “fell in love with the native church,” as he describes it. He turned chaplain to the Tennessee Titans and served on the pastoral employees of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville and later Christ Group Church, in Franklin, Tennessee.
When Cramer and his spouse, Kelsey, needed to return to her residence state of Ohio, they started studying in regards to the want for church planting within the Buckeye State. After collaborating in Mission to North America’s Church Planter Evaluation, the Cramers linked with South Dayton Presbyterian Church, and in 2021 they moved to the fast-growing space to plant a daughter church. King’s Cross started assembly within the fall of 2022 and particularized on March 3, 2024. The Cramers focused the group of Springboro as a result of it’s projected to develop by 10% to twenty% within the subsequent decade.
“We planted this church to plant extra church buildings,” he mentioned. “We would like church planting to be in our ethos.”
King’s Cross has been blessed to see new believers come to religion, and at the moment it’s a multigenerational church that just lately bought its personal constructing. Not surprisingly, this church pastored by a former skilled athlete reaches many households who’re deeply concerned in sports activities. Cramer requested for prayer that he and his spouse and King’s Cross’ management would disciple the subsequent era to like Jesus greater than sports activities.
St. John the Beloved – Cincinnati, Ohio
St. John the Beloved is a neighborhood church serving and shepherding the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in city Cincinnati. Pastor Billy Otten, who was formed by the evangelism of Younger Life and the discipleship of the Navigators, moved to Over-the-Rhine in 2012 to work in campus ministry on the College of Cincinnati. Over the subsequent 10 years, he and his spouse, Julie, made inroads and planted seeds not simply on campus but additionally of their group. In 2022, Trinity Presbyterian Church, throughout the Ohio River in Ludlow, Kentucky, known as the Ottens to plant within the neighborhood they already beloved. A bunch of 5 households started worshiping collectively quickly thereafter.
St. John the Beloved was a scratch plant of Ohio Valley Presbytery, planted with out an current core group, and Otten cites the presbytery’s robust help as a significant factor in his church’s success. And St. John has efficiently reached many city Cincinnati subcultures that had been beforehand unengaged by the gospel and has seen new believers come to religion. The management at St. John seeks to create a group based on “abnormal means and endurance,” Otten mentioned, one that’s accessible and supportive to nonbelievers on “a long-term journey towards religion.”
St. John the Beloved particularized on March 17, 2024, and the church continues to evangelize, shepherd, and develop patiently. The church just lately put in two new elders and can quickly add a deacon. Otten requested for prayers for knowledge to know how one can disciple folks unfamiliar with the PCA and church usually, whereas additionally investing nicely in additional mature followers of Jesus.
Grace Presbyterian Fellowship – Park Hills, Missouri
Pastors Allan Harmening and Tyler Hendley turned mates in a seminary Hebrew class, discussing the finer factors of animal sacrifice within the Outdated Testomony. Harmening is a former dairy veterinarian, and Hendley grew up on a cattle farm.
After graduating from Covenant Seminary, Harmening moved to Farmington, Missouri, 75 miles southeast of St. Louis, to function a hospice chaplain. His persona and background made him match for the agricultural, agricultural group, and in 2019 he planted Grace Presbyterian as a plant of Missouri Presbytery. Harmening quickly invited Hendley to affix him within the work, and with the monetary help of MNA and Twin Oaks Presbyterian in Ballwin, Missouri, Hendley took the decision. Harmening, and Hendley proved to be complementary, appropriate co-planters. Grace particularized on Could 19, 2024.
Harmening and Hendley have seen God care for his or her church in some ways. “We’re regularly amazed on the Lord’s provision,” Harmening mentioned. “From chairs to espresso makers to hymnals to a sound system, he’s met so a lot of our sensible wants.”
One of many challenges to ministry in Park Hills is that the world is saturated with church buildings in mainline denominations. Harmening, who discovered Reformed doctrine to be a wealthy, renewing affect in his personal religion journey, requested for prayer that many in Grace’s group would hear the gospel and develop in the entire counsel of God’s Phrase.
New Metropolis Fellowship Beechwood – Rochester, New York
Pastor Chris Holdridge grew up not removed from the neighborhood the place he now ministers. In 2002 he started attending Grace Church (PCA) in Rochester, New York. A public college trainer on the time, Holdridge was quickly volunteering with the youth ministry at Grace and turning into more and more concerned on the church. Through the years, he felt a deepening need to pursue the Beechwood neighborhood the place he lived and labored. After finishing Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando’s hybrid grasp of divinity program, Holdridge was ordained as an evangelist and commissioned by Grace to go attain the neighborhood on his coronary heart.
What would ultimately turn into a church plant started as 441 Ministries, a group improvement company in Beechwood. Holdridge served because the company’s first director, and his time within the function allowed him and his household to additional relationships and make investments assets locally. In 2016, Holdridge handed the company over to a brand new chief and planted New Metropolis Fellowship Beechwood.
Quickly a various group that included Black Lives Matter activists and cops, non secular skeptics and long-time evangelicals, was studying how one can stay and worship collectively. New Metropolis started the method to particularize in late 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced challenges and surprising delays, however it by no means derailed the church, which held its first service as a particularized church on June 21, 2024.
Holdridge requested for prayer for unity, help, and continued development in a context that’s fairly socioeconomically numerous; and for God’s windfall across the upcoming want for a constructing within the neighborhood, which is able to probably be costly.
Capital Presbyterian Fairfax – Fairfax, Virginia
Within the second half of the 2010s, the leaders of McLean Presbyterian Church, situated simply west of Washington, D.C., acknowledged that a lot of members had been commuting from Fairfax, Virginia.
“Christians will drive half-hour to come back to church, however non-Christians received’t,” mentioned Pastor Rob Yancey. In 2017, Yancey was employed as a church planting resident at McLean. He spent a yr studying from its leaders, making connections within the church, and gathering a core group.
In March 2019, Yancey led the primary worship service of a Fairfax-based congregation, which McLean handled like a second website that will ultimately particularize. He and his launch crew had been assured the philosophy of ministry that was working at McLean would translate to Fairfax. They borrowed and constructed upon the present method and programs, and innovated as alternatives to take action arose.
Yancey cited the pandemic and the political local weather round 2020 as main challenges for the younger church. The help and encouragement of their mom church, he mentioned, had been crucial: “We by no means felt alone on this… We’d not have made it as a scratch plant. However the [McLean] elders strolling alongside us gave us fixed help.”
Capital Presbyterian particularized on July 14, 2024. Yancey requested for prayer that the church would proceed to succeed in the misplaced in Northern Virginia with the excellent news of Jesus; and for God’s knowledge to navigate the assorted transitions that development brings.
Trinity Church – Collierville, Tennessee
God used a quarter-life disaster to redirect Pastor Hunter Brewer towards gospel ministry and church multiplication. Bothered by the truth that he didn’t have enough solutions to life’s huge questions, Brewer left regulation college in 1998 and returned residence to Gadsden, Alabama, the place he started attending Rainbow Presbyterian Church. He quickly developed a friendship with the late Invoice Whitwer, which burgeoned right into a mentorship, a job on the church, and ultimately seminary. After finishing his research, Brewer served as assistant pastor at Lakeland Presbyterian in Flowood, MS, the place one other mentor, the late Jim Baird, inspired him to contemplate church planting. In 2003, Brewer planted Madison Heights Church in Madison, Mississippi.
In 2013, Brewer turned the primary coordinator of the Midsouth PCA Church Planting Community. Now he was the one mentoring younger pastors to plant throughout the area. Brewer beloved the work, however speaking about planting day after day, yr after yr, ultimately reignited his need to plant himself.
In 2019, he left the community place to plant Trinity Church in Collierville, Tennessee. The years that adopted had been troublesome, because the Brewers cared for a number of members of the family with well being issues and navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. Brewer mentioned that whereas these challenges slowed the progress of the plant, they served to deepen friendships and dedication within the core group. The Brewers have come by these challenges to a season of respite. Trinity Church particularized on March 3, 2024, and is rising healthily. Brewer requested for prayer that Trinity would proceed to be “a gracious place for the unchurched and de-churched;” and that the church would retain its ardour to plant different church buildings sooner or later.
Journey Smith serves as assistant pastor at Hope Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
