Church Plant
Church Planting Plan
Our plan to plant a church and how you can partner with us
Adoniram Judson was a Baptist missionary who devoted his life to missions work in Burma, a country near India, in the early 1800s. As Judson wrestled with what he believed God wanted him to do, he concluded that he should give himself to advancing the Gospel in a country where it was not known. And this he did, spending nearly 40 years in Burma laboring to take the Gospel to a country with no Gospel witness.
This account is one means the Lord used in me to solidify how and where He wants my family and me to give our lives to advancing His Gospel. We are excited about what we have concluded and our thoughts and excitement have been confirmed and encouraged by close peers and mentors, including our pastor.
Church planting
Halfway through my theological training at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., the Lord began to impress a desire on me to do pastoral ministry. I love to see people base their lives on God’s Word, grow in their devotion to Christ and have their attitudes, efforts and decisions be shaped by all that they have received in Christ. And pastors get to spend their lives seeing these things happen: what a joy and privilege - I cannot see myself doing anything else. As I have expressed this desire to close friends and my pastor they have all come back with a thumbs up, confirming that I have an ability to teach, lead and shepherd.
As I have completed my master of divinity over the last year and a half, I have also sensed a growing desire to start a church. The Lord has given my wife and me a burden to see the gospel take root in an area, leading to the making of disciples and start of a church that leads to the start of other gospel-rooted and centered churches. Our pastor, Bill Cook of Ninth & Baptist in Louisville, Ky., said he thinks it is wise for us to pursue church planting.
As my wife and I have thought and prayed about future ministry, we have agreed that we, like the Judsons, would like to give our lives to ministering in a certain area. We want to sink our roots into a community and dive into ministry there for as long as the Lord would see fit.
Unlike the Judsons, my wife and I do not believe we should give ourselves to a foreign missions context. But we do believe we should minister in an area where the gospel is not strongly rooted. For us, that means Denver, Colorado.
Why Denver?
There are two key practical/logistical reasons why we believe the Lord wants us to plant a church in Denver:
1. Lostness
According to the research of Joe Beckler, who serves as the Denver Urban Church Planting Missionary for the Colorado Baptist Convention, 90% of Denver residents are unchurched. One church planter in downtown Denver concluded after research that 90-97% of Denver residents are unchurched.[1] Another study put the percentage at 87-90%.[2] The fact that people are unchurched strongly suggests that they have not accepted the gospel.
2. Growth
The Denver Metro Area is currently at an all-time high of 2.8 million residents and has a growth rate that has consistently outpaced the national rate every decade since the 1930s. By 2030, Metro Denver’s population is anticipated to increase to almost 3.8 million.[3] The more people there are in an area, the more need there is for the gospel.
Internship at Summit Community Church
As I talked to respected peers and mentors, several suggested that if we decided to pursue church planting we might consider doing a church planting internship first. This sounded like sage advice, so we pursued different options and settled on an internship at Summit Community Church in O’Fallon, Missouri (near St. Louis).
John Ryan planted Summit in 1998 and in those 13 years, Summit has experienced slow, but steady growth. John has also had the opportunity to train and send out 3 church planters over that time, while mentoring roughly 20 planters as part of the Acts 29 church planting network.
Transition to Denver
Over the past 10 years, dozens of church planting efforts in the Denver-area have failed. The reasons for this are likely many and varied. In some cases, men probably moved into the area from out of town and believed they could be leading a self-sustaining church in three years, even though they were not from the area. In other cases, a lack of funding slowed the work.
These experiences have led the Colorado Baptist Convention to only extend funding to church planting efforts led by men who have lived in the area for at least a year and who have sponsor churches in the Denver area.
We desire to take a long-term approach to church planting that arises out of a local church in the area, as well as partnership from other local churches and individuals. We are currently pursuing different potential partnerships with Denver-area churches where we would minister in a currently-existing church in view of being sent out to plant a church when the time is right.
Your key role
The key role you can play is financial and prayer partnership in our ministry as we train to plant and then launch our plant in Denver. We are supported by ministry partners in our internship at Summit and will continue this support as we transition to Denver.
Adoniram Judson’s sometimes lesser known counterpart is Luther Rice. Like Judson, Rice shared a burden for reaching the lost across the Atlantic from America. But the two, and others, determined that Rice could be most effective by remaining in America and raising financial and prayer support for Judson and his family. The efforts of Rice and the ministry partners he raised up made it possible for Judson to do the work he did in Burma.
Financial and prayer partnership
If you are interested in partnering with us as financial and/or prayer partners, you can contact us at gwishall[at]gmail[dot]com. If you are interested in supporting us financially, we will let you know how you can do that. If you are interested in being one of our prayer partners, we will make sure you begin receiving our monthly newsletter.
For more information, you may visit www.vimeo.com/garrettwishall. There you will find several videos where you can meet my family, hear the testimonies of my wife and me and learn more about my ministry vision and philosophy.
Our desire
Laura and I are excited at the ministry partnerships the Lord has developed and we look forward to partnering with more folks in the future.
We ask and invite you to share in this ministry opportunity with us. Like Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice, may we all advance the gospel to the ends of the earth until Christ returns. We do so by the grace of God and for His glory.
In Christ, Garrett and Laura Wishall
Garrett Wishall • gwishall[at]gmail[dot]com
Laura Wishall • laura_wishall[at]yahoo[dot]com
www.vimeo.com/garrettwishall • www.twitter.com/GarrettWishall
You can also find us both on Facebook
[1]Andy Metzger, a recent graduate of Southeastern Seminary, and part of the Soma Denver church planting team: www.baptisttwentyone.com/?p=3667; www.somadenver.org.
[2]Glenmary Research Center according to the NETS Institute for Church Planting: www.netsem.org.
[3]Metzger again and the Metro Denver website: www.metrodenver.org/demographics-communities/demographics/population.html.