Planting seeds about a Church Plant

After wrestling with inner conflict, God begins to work on my heart about the possibility of planting a new church in Omaha. Now you must know I don’t exactly fit the mold for church planters. (I’m kind of old to be doing this, and I don’t have a goatee. Yet!) But check out some of these observations made by David Olson in his book, The American Church in Crisis:

• Seventy Seven percent of Americans do not attend a local church on any given Sunday.
• Studies show that new churches have three to four times the conversion rate per attendee than established churches.
• The percentage of people attending an Evangelical church has declined by more than 4% in Nebraska over the past five years.

The fact is that Omaha is underchurched. There is a need for more life giving churches in the Omaha area. So a few months ago, God planted these facts in my heart. And like the oak trees that began growing in my gutter last month, the idea of a church plant began to grow in my heart. (Probably not a good metaphor – Gutter = Heart – but run with it, okay?)

After some consideration and deliberation with God and with Jody, we decided the time had come to broach the subject with Pastor Mark…