Some years ago a friend of mine invited me to consider planting a church. I would have partnered with his church in a growing metroplitan area in the U.S. One of my first acts of prayer was to call my friend and former college roommate Alan Karr. We helped Alan plant a church in Douglass County, CO. Eventually Alan would become the Nehemiah Project Director for Golden Gate Theological Seminary and facilitate church planting with the Colorado Baptist Convention. Alan knows church planting.
After our conversation I realized the romantic idea of planting a church, was just that, a romantic idea. My heart was and is with Snow Hill. I thanked Alan for his time and his pointed questions. The matter was not one of ability, skill set or gifting. The issue was the impulse of the Spirit.
We have been glad to partner and plant two churches, offer direct support to some of our folks who followed the move of the Spirit into vocational missions, and adopted two non-traditional missionary couples offering support, prayer and encouragement. We understand the missional impulse and express it here at Snow Hill with our Wednesdays Are for Others (community meal, food pantry and clothes closet) and the impending opeing of Community of Hope Free Medical Clinic. We like to think we get missional – and we continue to work to see what that looks like in our context.
When I found out Biblical Seminary, a great seminary I am privileged to work with, will offer an online Master’s Degree in Missional Church Planting, I wanted to help get the word out. The Biblical Seminary-Shapevine partnership may produce the first online degree of its kind. If you have thought of planting a church and working toward a theological degree and did not want to relocate and put off the planting process this might be for you. Or, if you have been involved in church planting and would like to work toward a theological degree without leaving your church plant, this might be for you.
Take a look at the syllabus for the first course Dyamics of Healthy Missional Communites. Joe Myers will facilitate the course. Click on the course title for the pdf.