Church Planting Visions

At the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, I began teaching a one-week, intensive church planting course today. Though I was working on another post, I decided to postpone it for another time so I could share a vision with you that I had today.

No, I am not claiming to be a prophet. Though I did start off the day with the prophetic vision of Ezekiel seeing a river flowing from the temple of God bringing life to the Gentile nations of the earth (Ezekiel 47:1-12).

No, the course I teach is not profound. Most of the material I have learned from others, as I'm no church planting guru. However, showing students how to do "Jesus' work Jesus' way," as one of my mentors liked to say, is always a joy.

No, the classroom is not packed. Only seven students are taking the class. But it is the students themselves that the Lord has brought to our traditional Scots-Irish seminary that's given me the vision.

For two of these students are from East Asia and desire to return there to church plant.

Another is from Japan and wants to return to his homeland to do the same.

Yet a fourth is a Spanish speaker who is encouraging church planting in Central and South America, and wants to see new Spanish-speaking Reformed Presbyterian churches in this country started.

Another pair of students came together. A former Baptist pastor and now elder in our denomination brought an African American who was a former Pentecostal minister. They are working together to plant a RP church in Louisville.

The last student is white, but his surname is Italian. He wants to church plant in the 10/40 window among an unreached people group.

My vision? I'm just seeing more clearly the Lord moving our little denomination forward, as He is doing with so many others, to fulfill exactly what He promised to do.

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations (Rev. 21:22-26).