The COVID-19 pandemic slowed IPHC progress on church planting. Most churches were rightly focused on the health of their congregations, and church planters faced some unique challenges, navigating new guidelines for rental space, fewer people able or willing to try something new, and the difficulty of building and maintaining relationships using online platforms.
Trey Jones, presenting at the February 2022 Church Planters Intensive (CPI).
But as towns and cities began to open again, church planting picked up steam. Arise 2033, the IPHC’s church planting initiative, has provided a tangible goal–to see IPHC churches in 75% of US counties. Trey Jones, who has coordinated IPHC church planting since August 2021, is excited by what he’s seeing.
“We finished 2021 with 25 new churches launched, and our goal for 2022 is to launch 40 new churches,” Jones said. “Our goal is to create a church multiplication movement that includes church planting, multi-site multiplication, and house churches. The proven system we’re using—which includes personal coaching, ongoing training, and adequate funding—has a success rate better than 90%.”
According to Jones, the IPHC now has 46 active church plants across the US, from California to Rhode Island. (Rhode Island was one of two states without a single IPHC presence.) Evangelism USA’s church planting push, a component of Healthy, Growing, Multiplying (HGM) Churches strategy, which centers on identifying new leaders and developing their strengths, as well as coaching seasoned leaders as they move into new areas of ministry.
“We have identified 90 potential planters,” Jones said. “Fifty came to our last Church Planters Intensive, a free three-day training for planters, multi-site pastors, and mother church pastors. The planters heard from successful practitioners who taught them how to build a launch team, how to raise funds and how to launch strong and healthy so that the new church plant has sustainability built into it when it launches.”
Ongoing coaching plays an essential role in the planting process. In fact, Jones said that distinguishes the IPHC’s effort from other planting movements.
“Most movements coach to launch,” Jones said. “We coach through and beyond launch. We help new planters transition to the HGM Peer Coaching Groups, where they can build relationships with other pastors to help them grow and develop in pastoral health, systems, models, and leadership. Our planters are never left alone and isolated after launch.”
We heard from planters that coaching makes us unique among planting associations, so we have increased our number of coaches from 7 to 30.”
In response to the need, HGM has expanded its number of coaches from 7 to 30. These coaches help both new and experienced pastors grow, in online trainings as well as in-person events. The next live event will be Breaking Barriers, hosted by Compassion Church in Dickson, TN.
“The momentum is building,” said Jones. “It really is a new day for church multiplication in the IPHC.”
YOU can help plant churches!
Want to be a church planter? Visit PlantAChurch.us to learn more about the IPHC’s unique approach.
Want to help plant a church? We also need mother churches and planting partners. Visit PlantAChurch.us or contact Evangelism USA to connect.
You can also support planting by giving to the Arise 2033 Multiplication Fund.
