What does Mission OC’s overall strategy for planting healthy churches look like?
First, our primary customer is the local church, not the church planter. Our conviction is that churches should plant churches. Only 4 percent of U.S. churches actually plant churches. This is an indicator of a couple things: First, 96 percent of churches don’t have an effective discipleship strategy, and second, most churches don’t know where to start. The focus of Mission OC is to serve and support churches in their discipleship strategies and church planting initiatives. We want to see a radical culture of multiplication in our county, and we believe this will happen by equipping and supporting existing churches in their initiatives to plant churches.
Mission OC is committed to providing for churches what they need to plant healthy churches with strong leaders. To be honest, planting on a strategy of hope is bad stewardship and usually leads to an ineffective church. Mission OC wants to do all we can to make sure churches are being planted by strong and healthy leaders. To accomplish this, we want every church in our county to have access to best practices and services.
We’re planting two Hispanic churches in Santa Ana, and both are moving at a good speed. It seems like every week we hear stories from these guys of people coming to Christ and the Gospel moving throughout Santa Ana. They’re the kind of stories you hope to hear after a church is planted, but we’re hearing it before the launch. One will launch this September while the other will launch next year. But their focus is really the community and the city they’re in and taking the Gospel there, and over time seeing how a church gathering can emerge from that focus.
How can the church planting community pray for you and Mission OC?
We’re new so we have a lot to learn. Launching a new ministry is a lot like church planting. We need prayer for the right partners, the right funding and the right resources to accomplish our mission and vision. Our whole strategy is only effective if churches partner and collaborate with us and each other. So we need the right churches to come to the table. Here’s my biggest prayer request: That we would have 34 churches—one from each city in our county—that agree to be the conveners and hold the heart of God for each city. We have nine right now, so we’re excited about what’s ahead.