OAK LAWN, IL (December 15) – “What’s working in church planting” was a key topic of discussion last week as 10 pastors met with Don Davenport, associate director of church planting and development for the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) as part of a peer mentoring summit for African-American church planters.
The two-day event, held at the Oak Lawn Holiday Inn and facilitated in cooperation with the Department of Church Growth and Evangelism, included pastors from six conferences who are less than two years into the church planting process. They are:
- Conway Boyce of Brooklyn Covenant Ministries in Brooklyn, New York
- Harvey Carey of Citadel of Faith Covenant Church in Detroit, Michigan
- Kevin Davenport of New Beginning Covenant Church in Lansing, Illinois
- James Gibson of Destiny Covenant Church in Detroit, Michigan
- Catherine Gilliard of Commissioned Disciples Covenant Church in Tucker, Georgia
- Phil Jackson of The House Covenant Church in Chicago, Illinois
- Camille Russell-Wooden of Abundant Life Covenant Church in Pasadena, California
- Efrem Smith of Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota
- George Wilson of Friends4Life Covenant Church in Flossmoor, Illinois
- Terry Woodson of Bethel Bible Fellowship Covenant Church in Carollton, Texas
Gary Walter, executive minister of Church Growth and Evangelism, and Dave Olsen, director of church planting, also represented the department along with Davenport. Discussion group topics included “What has surprised you about church planting?”, “What’s working?” and “What is not working?”
The represented churches are in various stages of development – some have already hosted grand opening services, some have been ministering as a church for more than a year and others are in the Bible study/core group development stage.
Carey, who was an associate pastor for a Chicago African-American megachurch, has hosted Bible studies for more than 100 individuals during his early months of ministry with his church in Detroit. Russell-Wooden’s church began weekly services on October 5. Smith, a noted speaker for a nationally known parachurch youth ministry before becoming a church planter, has received help from both Covenant and non-Covenant congregations in starting a multiethnic church that has attracted more than 400 people in Sunday worship. Meanwhile, Wilson has ministered in the suburbs using a building that once belonged to an Anglo Covenant congregation on Chicago’s south side.
“It was exciting to hear about the wide span of ministry emphases of these churches that will join the Covenant family over the next few years,” said Gilliard, whose church is located near Atlanta. “The range of emphases goes from providing hip-hop culture in worship to meeting the challenges of planting multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-racial ministries. Some are focused on drawing the emerging generation and are developing intergenerational ministries and others are focused on ministry to young adults on college campuses. Others shared about their emphasis on identifying and mentoring young African American emerging leaders.
“As varied as each call to ministry was, there was a unifying focus on leadership training/development and discipleship,” Gilliard continued. “Each pastor learned from each other as ideas were shared on how to teach spiritual disciplines that produce disciples who are mature in their faith.”
For more information on the peer summit, call Davenport at 773-907-3353 or 773-209-3735.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.