BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – While dozens of Southern Baptist churches
are mobilizing via Send North America: New York City – which launched Sept. 30 –
to plant new churches in the Big Apple and its greater metro area, Shades
Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., may be the most excited.
Send North America is the North American Mission Board’s strategy to mobilize
and assist churches and individuals in hands-on church planting throughout the
United States and Canada.
Pastored for the last 15 years by Danny Wood, Shades Mountain Baptist is
spearheading New York City area church planting under NAMB’s Send North America
initiative.
Shades Mountain – which on Sept. 18 celebrated its 100th anniversary – is participating
in Send North America: New York City in two ways. First, the church is a
supporting church for Maranatha Grace Church in Fort Lee, N.J., just across the
Hudson River from Manhattan. Second, Wood is serving as chairman of the
partnership coalition of local and national Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)
leaders who will coordinate church planting in metro New York, which numbers
some 22 million people.
Why are Wood and Shades Mountain Baptist interested in planting churches in New
York and New Jersey? Don’t they have enough to do as one of the largest SBC
churches in Alabama? Their reasons can be traced back to the fall of 2001 and
Wood’s vision to take Shades Mountain to a higher lever of missions and
ministry.
Photo by Peter Field Peck Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., pastored by Danny Wood, is leading New York City area church planting under the North American Mission Board’s Send North America initiative. Wood serves as chairman of the New York City partnership coalition. |
In 2001, we had only two families of eight people on the mission field,” Wood
said. “Under our Share 2010 Vision, we wanted to have our members on mission
serving in 24 time zones throughout the world. We wanted to plant churches in
all 11 International Mission Board regions. We wanted to minister in all 50
states. Our goal was to plant five new churches in the United States, one in
Canada and to adopt one of NAMB’s Strategic Focus Cities.”
Since the vision of Wood and his church was what they believed to be God-sized,
he told his congregation, “New York is the largest city in America, so let’s
tackle it.”
And tackle it they did. In 2004, Shades Mountain started supporting pastor
Kevin Pounds to plant The Point Church at Rutgers University in New Brunswick,
N.J.
Under Send North America: New York City, Shades Mountain has mobilized to
partner with Maranatha Grace Church, a multiethnic, English-speaking
congregation – running about 100 each week – pastored by South Korea native Won
Kwak. That includes onsite missions work by Shades Mountain members as well as
financial support of Maranatha by Shades Mountain.
Wood is the first to concede that not all SBC churches have the vision,
priority and will to plant new churches. How did he persuade his members to
jump on the church planting bandwagon?
“We just looked at the New Testament,” Wood said. “Look at what Paul, Barnabas
and others did, how they traveled to plant new churches – usually in major
cities. We have to plant churches in major cities. That’s how the
multiplication of the gospel takes place.”
Wood said Shades Mountain members quickly embraced church planting.
“We just showed them the statistics that a new church will evangelize more and
grow more than a church more settled,” he said. “We now know that we can
lengthen Shades Mountain’s reach by planting more churches.”
As Shades Mountain began planting new churches, Wood said members got excited
and he would have the church planters come in and be a part of the church’s
annual Global Impact Celebration each February.
“Our people would catch their vision and get even more excited. They began
taking trips to the church plants. Our folks just fell in love with the
planters and came to understand how difficult it can be to plant churches up in
the New York area. They became anxious to help out.”
Wood said planting a church in a distant location takes missions to a higher
level.
“When you go on a mission trip, you go, invest some time, and then you return
home. It’s more meaningful to plant a church there. If you do that, you can
work with that new church plant, invest in it and see the fruits of your labor
that will continue on.”
And while Wood admits the size of a sending or supporting church is a factor,
it’s not a prerequisite in measuring success in church planting.
“Any size church can be a sending or supporting church,” Wood said. “What’s so
good about Send North America is the way the local coalition – like the one I
chair in New York – is created to match up churches of all sizes that want to
plant churches,” he said. “A small church can join in with other churches and
pool resources to plant churches. At the same time, the local coalition matches
up these sending churches with the church planters who are being identified,
trained and validated.”
There is a role for every SBC church of every size under NAMB’s Send North
America effort. The first step for any church to get involved in planting
churches is to go to namb.net and click on “mobilize me.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Mickey Noah writes for the North American Mission Board.)
Related stories