CRC, RCA Church Planters Gather

More than 150 church planters and other leaders from both the Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America gathered together recently to focus on growing new churches together.

The two-day "Catch the Wave" pre-conference in Orlando, Florida, took place immediately prior to the Exponential church planting conference, which attracted more than 3,000 church planters from across North America.

Church planters in attendance at the pre-conference participated in worship, training sessions, small group learning events, and networking with parenting churches. The conference ended with a visit from Amway founder Richard DeVos, who challenged the two denominations to work together closely to bring the Gospel to more people.

"Catch the Wave," which was co-sponsored by the Christian Reformed Home Missions Church Planting and Development team and the RCA Church Multiplication team, was designed to catalyze the passion of churches to plant other churches.

"For both the CRC and RCA, this is a calling from God that many churches are hearing and asking to be further equipped," says Tim Vink, coordinator of Church Multiplication, Reformed Church in America. "We know that when a church plants another church directly, there is a very high rate of success, over 90 percent. Churches planting churches allows a true multiplying and sending movement to grow exponentially over time."

While the CRC and RCA have been collaborating on church planting for some time, the conference marked the first formal gathering of church planters and parenting churches from both denominations.

"This kind of event accelerates the mutual learning and deeper relationships," Vink says. "Our intent is to show that in our unity, we are stronger with Gospel impact, that our cooperating helps both denominations hear the call, keep the courage, learn the competencies, and coach one another to far more church planting success."

The conference began with a worship service led by RCA church planter Rev. Mike Hayes, who leads an urban church plant in San Francisco. Hayes also led one of the conference's most popular group sessions, which was focused on the pros and cons of urban church planting.

The event also helped people openly discuss their fears about starting new ministries and parenting new churches. Throughout the conference, CRC and RCA church planters and parent churches told stories about their experiences multiplying new churches.

Another area of focus at the conference's group learning sessions was the planting of ethnically diverse congregations. A session on multicultural churches initiated lively discussion among church planters about language barriers, cultural nuances, and immigration.

Also emphasized was working in clusters, which are groups of churches and leaders located in the same geographic region. Church planter Randy Rowland, who leads Sanctuary CRC, a Home Missions-sponsored church in Seattle, Washington, led the session on clusters. Both denominations are developing clusters, which are creating gospel movements and developing diverse, mission-minded leaders.

"We loved being together," says Vink. "We laughed and worshipped and prayed and learned together, one family of God. And according to Psalm 133, God commands a blessing where we dwell together in unity. I believe we all felt that favor from our Lord."