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Under ELI's program, a network of churches acts in partnership to ensure the continual development of Emerging Leaders.
These partnered churches mutually support the formation of new churches through the provision of training site locations,
financial support, and a networked relational community for potential church planters.
Several churches are already coming together in a collaborative effort to seize this opportunity:
Coast Hills Community Church (Alisio Viejo, Ca.)
Coast Hills was begun from a dream of creating a church where people could discover and experience a relationship with God. From a small Bible study in a living room among a handful of neighbors and friends in 1985, Coast Hills has grown to a community of over 3,500 committed to respond to God’s calling. Church planting is just one of the many ways they are involved in doing this around the world.
Forefront Church (Virginia Beach, Va.)
Forefront started in 1998 with four adults and two toddlers, and has since grown to over 700.
From its inception, Forefront has focused on reaching people who had never been to church or who
had long ago given up on church, then helping them allow God to transform them into radical,
risk-taking followers of Jesus. Through loving people unconditionally and offering cutting-edge,
culturally relevant worship services, that’s exactly what they’ve achieved. In fact, 70% of
the people who attend Forefront were formerly unchurched. Forefront is heavily involved in
foreign missions - having adopted an unreached people group in Southeast Asia where they now
have several missionaries - and with 100+ people a year going on mission trips. Forefront
was originally a plant of New Life Christian Church and
as a result has a huge heart for church planting.
Gateway Community Church (Austin, Tx.)
In five years, Gateway has grown to over 1,700 people attending weekly, with over 1,000 connected
in small groups. Of those people, 50% became Christ-followers at Gateway, and 80% are
between 18 and 40 years old. Gateway pastors have baptized former Buddhists, Muslims, Jews,
gays and lesbians, atheists and agnostics; from homeless people to high-tech entrepreneurs.
In summary, God has accomplished the original vision He gave Gateway's leaders for reaching
a spiritually lost, postmodern, post-Christian generation with the Gospel. Gateway also
planted two other churches in its first three years.
Kensington Community Church (Troy, Mi.)
Kensington Community Church was founded in 1990 to provide a casual, relaxed atmosphere
where individuals could investigate Christianity without guilt or pressure. The 6,000-member
non-denominational Christian church now occupies a 40-acre campus in Troy, Michigan just
outside Detroit. To further expand its reach to the lost in the Detroit area, Kensington
launched a 2nd (North) campus in Rochester Hills, Mi in 2003. In addition, Kensington is committed
to planting new churches until "every man, woman, and child has heard the good news of Jesus
Christ". Its outreach mission is called "Vision 2020" and it has the goal of planting
at least 40 new churches by the year 2020. Built into this vision is the mandate that these church
plants will multiply by planting even more churches. Kensington has so far planted 11
domestic and 2 international churches during its history.
New Life Christian Church (Centreville, Va.)
New Life was started in 1992 with the simple vision to reach people who didn't already
go to church. From the beginning, New Life's intent was to be a church planting church that
focused on reaching a non-believing generation and to also have lots of fun. New Life makes
it a point to communicate its message through the use of humor, music, video, and other
elements of the D.C. culture. Today, the church averages just over 1,000
people each Sunday meeting in several services on two campuses (one in Centreville, Va.
and one in Ashburn, Va.). What is most important is that a
bunch of people who had never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or had not been to church
since they were kids, now come to church, have accepted Christ as their Savior, and are
growing in their relationship with Him as a result of New Life. In addition, New Life
has always been convinced that the best way to help people find God is through planting
new churches. As a result, New Life established Passion for Planting (a church planting
support, planning, and management organization) in 2002 to facilitate its church planting efforts.
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"Multiple movements of God's Spirit seem to be developing in an effort to lay aside individual church fiefdoms to cooperate together across denominations and traditions in unprecedented ways. We all realize that emerging leaders are our only hope for turning the tide so that Christ's church exerts a compelling influence once again. And we believe this is an effort that all existing churches can participate in to successfully breathe new life into church for generations to come."
(John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed)
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