“God is never nearer his church than when trouble is near.”
Richard Sibbes
Someone recently asked me if I had read Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Church. I had but it was many years ago. Throughout the decades various movements have added extra descriptors before the word “church.” There have been Purpose-Driven Churches, Missional Churches, Deep Churches, House Churches, Center Churches, you get the picture. In all these cases, the goal should be to be a Sending Church. Yes, we are going to add one more name to that list. A Sending Church is a church committed to expanding the Kingdom of God by committing time, personnel, and financial resources to planting other churches. The definition I just shared is a good working definition but not as comprehensive as it could be. Zach Bradley gives us a fuller definition: A Sending Church is a local community of Christ-followers who have made a covenant together to be prayerful, deliberate, and proactive in developing, commissioning, and sending their own members both locally and globally, often in partnership with other churches or agencies, and continuing to encourage, support, and advocate for them while making disciples cross-culturally.” [The Sending Church Defined, Knoxville, TN: The Upstream Collective, 3.]
The Road Church is a Sending Church. Part of the 7-1-0-10 Plan is to plant, replant, or help revitalize, seven churches over the course of ten years. The first church that has been planted is Sovereign Joy Baptist Church (in the Northland of KC). God has graciously helped us with this effort. Here are some of God’s many mercies: 1) the work (SJBC) began with Charles Ackmann and Jason DeRouchie, two men with many years of experience and with well-defined goals and a philosophy of ministry in place. They were well-suited to begin and advance the work. This was a blessing because the leadership at The Road is just making a start in how all of this should be done; 2) The Road has had help from two different agencies, the North American Mission Board and the Treasuring Christ Together network. Both these networks have been involved in deeply supporting SJBC; 3) our gracious congregation has approved a 2025 budget which reveals an unwavering commitment to this new work; and 4) many, many other blessings to numerous to recount here of individuals connected to The Road who volunteered their time, committed to pray, and gave financially to help SJBC. If you would like to hear more about how the Lord is moving at Sovereign Joy Baptist Church, please come to the Family Meeting this Sunday at 5:30 PM. Pastor Charles will be there to give a brief report. Have a blessed week and we will see many of you on Sunday.
Love in Christ,
Pastor Dale
