Church Planting in the Global Methodist Church

Being part of the church planting process for the Global Methodist Church in Kentucky has been amazing.  It’s different than I anticipated and I have learned a lot.

Any regional church body needs to annually plant 1% of its total number of churches just to maintain.  It must annually plant 3% of its total number of churches to grow.  If we fail to do that, we will simply be the latest declining Methodist denomination.

We have a really fluid situation in terms of how many churches do we have in Kentucky… as in the number grows each week!  We are up to (I think) 78 churches, but 268 left the United Methodist Church about 2 weeks ago, so the number will grow. 

As of right now, one is planted, I will preach the first service of the second church Sunday, and a third will probably start by August.

I have learned a little of what the circuit riders were up to, up against! 300 miles in the car yesterday, just in Kentucky.  But the action is worth it!  Like I said, I have learned some things.  And I have had some assumptions challenged.

What I have learned: we have kept a heavy thumb on the lay people in the past.  The three churches that we have been working on since about April are all being led by lay people!  I am there as a kind of consultant/cheer leader.  But lay people took the initiative.  Amazing what all the laity would do if we let them… if they took authority… if they didn’t seek the approval of the pastor and church boards and upper level officials.

My major assumption challenged: I have been totally shocked that we are planting churches with no money.  The other way of saying this, is that Bill Hughes and Mark Wilson were right—they have been telling me for years you can do it with way less than people think.  A few dedicated families can get you started.  Let me show you what I mean.  On Sunday, I will preach the first service of Trinity Global Methodist Church in Williamstown, KY.  They are made up of about 20-25 people whose church did not leave the United Methodist Church, but they wanted to keep worshipping together.  They don’t even have a bank account—yet.  But the lay people have been very active, putting together a group of people who want to be faithful to Scripture, and to each other.  They will start to worship, heal, gather their resources, and follow where God leads them.

So, if we plant three churches, we are ahead of the 3% target for growing the Global Methodist Church in Kentucky.  Right now.  I am going to assume that we will have 200 churches by the end of 2024.  So we have to get ready to be able to plant at least 6 churches per year.

Friends, the limiting factor is not going to be money.  We will need money, for sure.  But money will not be the limiting factor.  The limiting factor will be church planters.  We need lay people willing to go out, and we need pastors willing to pastor new churches.  Sue Eaton is the prayer coordinator for the Global Methodists in Kentucky.  We met a few days back in Louisville.  I was mentioning the difficulty in recruiting planters. She said, “I want to shift your language.  Don’t worry about recruiting planters.  Ask God for workers in the harvest field.”

Ha! Luke 10:2 is my favorite verse!  “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Therefore pray earnestly to Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into  His harvest.”  I have been praying it for years, but with renewed insight and fervor.  In fact, it’s the reason I started this substack—to enlist prayer warriors to help me multiply disciples and churches, to spread Scriptural holiness across the land.

What an amazing Providence and Wisdom of God. 37 years ago, as an atheist, I went to church with my grandfather.  In the bulletin was Luke 10:2.  I was overcome by an unprecedented, powerful feeling, a sense that the Scripture was for me, that I was going to be one of the workers in the harvest field.  And in a way that I cannot explain, but three friends who are now pastors also experienced something similar, I accepted the eventual truth of it but did not change my ways (until 8 years later).  I simply cannot explain how you can hear from God and not turn, but there you have it.  At any rate, when I finally gave my self to Jesus Christ, I felt the call to ministry.  And now it is the second half of the verse that comes into view: ask the Lord to send workers into His harvest field.  The Providence and the Wisdom of God: to give a verse so near and dear to my heart in terms of His personal interventions in my life—to heal my body, to save my soul, and so to work in His harvest—must now become precious in its fullness, as I trust that it is His field, His harvest—seeds have been sown, and night and day, whether I wake or sleep, they grow… first the plant, then the ear, then the grain in ear.  And there will be a harvest.

Will you join in me praying for workers in the harvest field?  I don’t mean that rhetorically.  Would you remember to pray that the Lord will send workers into the harvest field?