Home
Kansas Congregations Lend Church Plant a Helping Hand
EL DORADO, KS (April 12, 2005) - Brian Johnson, pastor of Hope Covenant
Church, says it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to get
this new church off the ground last summer had it not been for the help
of several churches in the area.
"We started preview services way before we were ready," says Johnson,
adding that it was important to begin services and sustain momentum for
the church plant's core group.
"I don't think we could have kept it," Johnson says.
Hope Covenant is "frontier" plant, one in which there are no other
Covenant churches nearby. El Dorado is a community of 13,000 about 25
minutes from Wichita.
"We didn't know a soul in El Dorado," says Johnson. He had been a
successful church planter elsewhere, but was struggling to get the core
group of Hope Covenant Church passed the point of being a Bible study
with a handful of couples attending.
Johnson had previously been a pastor in Kansas, and his relationships
with other pastors in the area paid off. He asked that the churches
send members to the first preview services to add important numbers and
create the necessary atmosphere that would attract attendees to return.
Other churches sent enough people to the first service that attendance
totaled 80, with only a handful from El Dorado. But those numbers began
to flip at each of the next four preview services held during the
summer. By the end of the season, almost all of the 80 in attendance
were from El Dorado. Looking back, Johnson says, "It was a really
wonderful way to jump-start the ministry." The Easter service last
month drew 150 people from the community.
For the preview services, some churches sent people from more than an
hour away, including the congregation in Clay Center, where Johnson
formerly was pastor. A worship team from Countryside Covenant Church in
McPherson led the worship services. Tim Holgerson, pastor of worship
arts at Countryside said his members were excited about helping. A
worship leader from Countryside stayed on past the summer to help train
a worship team developed from within the El Dorado congregation.
Pastors of the helping churches say the experience also benefited their
people. "It gets us outside of our church and to connect with other
churches and remind us that there are other connections with the
Covenant, says Darrell Cooper, associate pastor of Evangelical Covenant
Church in Lindsborg.
As an established church, Lindsborg's members also were inspired to
renew their commitment to evangelism. "That's really good for us to be
reminded, renewed and encouraged in that."
"It's been a great way for a number of churches to help another church
get started," says Dave Olson, director of church planting.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
