interview from the launch of The Well in Claremore, Oklahoma. Ricky Van Pay, Senior Pastor

Wow. I just spent the last three days “drinking from a fire hydrant” of preachers and teachers on the subject of starting new churches that change the world.

The conference was hosted at First Assembly of God in Griffin, Georgia where Dr. Randy Valimont is pastor. Randy has been at First Assembly for 16 years and his story is extraordinary. The short story is that when he came, the church had about 400 attendees. Today, they serve a church family of 4000. But a far more important metric is their commitment to missions and mission. They give generously ($18 million + over 16 years and rising rapidly), but perhaps more importantly they are actively involved in the mission of Christ in literally hundreds of practical and powerful ways. Randy believes their commitment to anointed transformational preaching, persistent prayer and generosity toward missions accounts for their ministry success. They have been involved in planting many churches overseas and are becoming even more active in starting new churches in the US. So just being at the church was encouraging and inspirational to me.

The convener of the conference was Dr. Slavic Radchuk. Slavic came to the US from the Ukraine. His testimony is amazing and his passion for expanding the Kingdom of God is legendary. His extraordinary efforts at evangelism earned him the title “The Billy Graham of the Ukraine.” His heart is still strong for reaching his homeland, but he has added the United States as the benefactor of his considerable evangelistic anointing. He hopes to be a catalyst for planting 200 new churches in the state of Georgia!

I was a speaker along with Phil Wall, Tommy White, Dave Divine and Rick Dubose. Every single speaker “hit the ball out of the park.” I’m fairly well versed on matters of church planting and I found myself thrilled with the new information and insights I gleaned from the slate of speakers. Just hanging out with them was awesome and enriching. Iron sharpening iron.

A big highlight was the opportunity to personally meet Reinhard Bonnke. This man is simply amazing. God is using him right now in Nigeria in phenomenal ways. He has personally preached to more people live than any human being. In one meeting he spoke face to face with 1.7 million. In one crusade, over 3 million signed decision cards indicating their desire to follow Christ. Reinhard is passionate about planting churches. He understands the power of partnership between the evangelist and the planter. He brings in the harvest, but he depends on existing and new churches to serve as storehouses for the harvest.

Bottom line… three days of really good stuff!

This morning, I received this note from Brian King, pastor of Changepoint Church in Cabot, Arkansas. 

“Hey Steve, I wanted to give you an update about our launch this weekend for Changepoint Church in Cabot, AR. We had 135 people and 9 commitments to Christ. In that number we had about 15 friends and family visiting so about 120 from the community. The service was awesome from start to finish and the buzz has now begun in our community. I’ll be posting some pic’s on my FaceBook profile later on today. Thanks for your vision for church planting! We could not have done this without the Matching Funds from AG Trust and the Church Multiplication Network.” 

Congratulations Brian and the launch team of Changepoint Church! I wish I could have been there. It is awesome to be in partnership with you! Keep us updated on your progress!