Wayne Schmidt on Church Planting

On Thursday, along with the senior pastors of the six other larger churches in Wisconsin, I travelled to Tomah and had lunch with Wayne Schmidt, senior pastor of Kentwood Community Church in Grand Rapids.

The purpose was to sharpen our focus on outreach and church planting.

Wayne shared his story with us -- how their church has helped birth several daughter congregations -- at varying levels of commitment from the mother church.

Sometimes, Kentwood helped with finances, sometimes people. Their first church plant was sending Kevin Myers from Michigan to Atlanta GA with another couple to start Crossroads. Crossroads is now the largest Wesleyan congregation -- so the baby elephant is bigger than momma!

Now, they are involved in the planting of a church each year. Wayne said this is the most exciting thing he's ever done.

He said the philosophy of Kentwood is this:

To permeate the region in such a way that every individual has the opportunity for a relationship with an authentic follower of Christ -- and that every person has the opportunity to know Christ.

They believe strategic church planting is vital to this mission.

At Kentwood, they focus their church planting efforts on changing and growing neighborhoods --that translates into bedroom communities.

He asked us about the bedroom communities in our area -- and we all laughed. Our churches are all in the rural northwoods -- and we don't have any bedroom communities. The closest thing to it is when someone adds a bedroom on the back of the farmhouse!

Wayne suggested that we use what we have -- and explore the "supply lines" for these rural communities. What are the natural traffic migrations? Perhaps the potential location for a new church will emerge from that exploration.

He also encouraged us to pool our lists of contacts throughout the state. Maybe we will find clusters of potential prospects in certain regions where we might possibly launch a church.

As long as Wisconsin has more bars than churches, we are definitely under-churched!

Also -- he shared three great insights on the side, which, for me, were the "take home points" of the day:

1. From Bill Hybels -- When facing a perplexing issue, schedule some time to "Sit in the Uncertainty" -- don't get sidetracked, answer e-mails, think about other stuff -- but focus, focus, focus on the issue. If you don't get an answer, schedule time again to do it -- and soon, the answer will emerge.

2. In the absence of clear authority, people act up! (My note: and also, in the presence of overbearing authority, people also act up!)

3. If you "play it safe" -- you will get a "safe" return. The higher the risk, the higher the return!

Thought you would enjoy these insights.