Engaging the World Before You Launch: A Church Planting Story from Rome, GA
Mitch Jolly had no idea what an impact one seminary class would have on his church planting dream! While taking a required class on missions Mitch found himself on an assignment attending a GlocalNet Conference at Northwood Church in Keller, TX. At Northwood Mitch was exposed to the concept of planting a “Glocal” church. There he learned that “the church is the missionary!” Mitch soon returned to Northwood to experience an internship that would change everything.
As he spent time absorbing the culture of Northwood, Mitch realized that his new church (which was still in the “dream” phase) needed to be intentional about engaging the world from the very beginning. After being exposed to the GlocalNet strategy for Nation Building, Community Development, and Church Multiplication, Mitch realized that this was the New Testament church and it was exactly what he wanted to give his life to.
His vision was to produce radical followers of Jesus Christ, and to be radical you must take risks. After some time of prayer and counsel, Mitch discerned that God wanted his new church to adopt an unreached people group BEFORE they even launched as a church! “We wanted to identify where the church is not, and focus our attention there” he said. So that’s what he did!
After identifying the nation and people group, (which has to remain anonymous for security reasons) Mitch began recruiting people to join with him as a part of the launch team for his new church. He said, “As we talked with people we told them what we intended to do. If they were not down with that, we said that this is not the church for you.”
Mitch enlisted 3 other pastoral staff to go with him to start Three Rivers Community Church in Rome, GA (a city of 95,000 people where only 12,000 attend any church.) They all shared the same vision. In fact, they wanted to devote at least 50% of all their financial resources to their mission work, which included nation building and church planting. In order to do this they all agreed to get other jobs to provide for their families and serve their church as “tent-makers.”
From the very beginning they started taking trips half way around the globe to share the gospel of Jesus through nation building initiatives. This year they will be celebrating their 4th anniversary as a church and they will be taking 6 different trips. And most of their trips involve a certain degree of risk. They are not going to the easy places or safe places.
Some have asked Mitch if this is a smart thing to do to engage his people in a closed country that is sometimes hostile to Christianity. Some have asked if it is a smart thing to engage the world so quickly as a new church. Mitch and his team believe that this is what God has called them to do and he responds by saying “We will not compromise the call for the sake of sensibility.”
Can new churches be global in their focus from the very beginning? Can they devote large amounts of their financial resources to mission causes? Mitch’s answer is “Absolutely!”
To learn more about Three Rivers Community Church see www.threeriverscc.org.
To learn more about GlocalNet see www.glocal.net.
To discover how your church can become a “Missional Church” contact us at info@nciglobal.org.
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