Laypersons sought to help start new churches Jeanette Pinkston, Jun 30, 2009
Bishop Michael Lowry
By Jeanette Pinkston Special Contributor
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—A network of lay leaders is being launched to help start new Wesleyan faith communities in five fast-growing regions of the U.S.
The Lay Missionary Planting Network (LMPN), an effort launched by Path 1/New Church Starts, a ministry of the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship (GBOD), will find, equip and mobilize 250 lay leaders to reach new faith communities in Virginia (including the Baltimore-Washington Conference), Greater New Jersey, Desert Southwest, Central Texas and East Ohio.
“As the United Methodist Church moves to create new places for new people, we need thousands of lay people to say ‘yes’ to their baptism and to move into the long tradition of laity who are planters of new churches and faith communities,” said the Rev. Karen Greenwaldt, top executive for GBOD.
The network will raise awareness of the importance of lay leadership in planting churches, said the Rev. Bener Agtarap, a new church strategist for Path 1.
The LMPN targets ethnic and underserved populations, and its emphasis is on starting United Methodist churches in areas where the denomination has had limited presence and in contexts where traditional approaches have not been successful.
Mr. Agtarap said the five conferences were chosen because they have the passion and commitment for new church development; the infrastructure and plan for new church plants and conference staff in place to give support; a growing population among people who are currently underserved by the United Methodist Church; and the desire to find and equip lay people to reach the richly diverse communities within their conferences.
“It’s really an exciting opportunity to create new churches for new people in new places in a way that reaches out in a multiethnic fashion,” said Bishop Michael Lowry of the Central Texas Conference.
Central Texas already has a fairly significant number of large and very strong Korean Churches in Killeen, the home of Fort Hood military base, the largest active duty armored post in the U.S.
Bishop Lowry said the conference would focus on African-American new church starts. “We will probably do seven African-American congregations, two Hispanic and one Anglo,” he said.
“If you study the Wesleyan roots they’re really a re-echoing of what happened in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. What we hope to have through a Lay Missionary Movement is a movement of the Holy Spirit as a part of that.”
Bishop Lowry says challenges will exist, but churches will have a strategy that is outward-focused to the mission field.
“The future will live with churches that are outwardly focused,” he said. “Churches with more memories than dreams are churches that are on a death spiral. [This] gives us a way to change the trajectory of existing congregations and start new ones; it’s a ‘both and’—renewing and at the same time creating new places for new people.”
The Desert Southwest Conference includes the two fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country—Maricopa and Clark counties—yet it is a young and relatively small conference with only 144 churches and fellowships.
“Enormous opportunities for creating new places for new people all across the U.S. call us to engage every disciple of Jesus Christ to reach out to others,” said Bishop Minerva Carcaño, who leads the conference.
“Faithful discipleship in the name of Christ Jesus has always been about sharing our faith,” she said. “The LMPN helps prepare disciples to share their faith in ways that will transform the world.”
Mr. Agtarap says that as more lay people get involved, the network will create excitement among more individuals and churches wanting to participate in renewing the United Methodist Church by starting new congregations. Participants will receive practical, hands-on, mentor-supported training to lead new congregations.
Theological and practical training will be an essential part of the network’s success, said the Rev. Thomas G. Butcher, the GBOD’s executive director of New Church Starts.
Charged with recruiting 1,000 church planters to create 650 new congregations by 2012, Path 1 is also recruiting coaches and mentors for the laypersons and their plants.
The team of laypersons and mentors will participate in specialized training in retreat settings that offer dialogue, theological competence, accountability and spiritual community.
Initially, the LMPN will train 50 laity over a two-year period on the Wesleyan faith tradition as well as preaching, pastoral care, growing a church, planting and multiplying ministries, discipling and mentoring others, developing leaders, the practice of personal and social holiness, and Christian perfection and stewardship.
Ms. Pinkston is the former director of media relations for the GBOD.
Bishop Michael Lowry
Bishop Lowry said the conference would focus on African-American new church starts. “We will probably do seven African-American congregations, two Hispanic and one Anglo,” he said. 
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