BRN Executive Director Barry Whitworth celebrates church planting

Though March 21, 2021, is Church-Planting Emphasis Sunday on the Southern Baptist Convention calendar, the Baptist Resource Network likes to celebrate church planting every day, says BRN Executive Director Barry Whitworth.

March 18, 2021
Barry Whitworth

Hello, BRN Family! It’s great to be with you today!

This Sunday, on the Southern Baptist Convention calendar, is Church-Planting Emphasis Sunday, but we like to celebrate church planting every day!

Currently, in the Baptist Resource Network, there are 45 church planters/plants and roughly 20 potential planter candidates in the pipeline. What about you or your church? You can join the Church Planting Movement, too! With 14 million lost people stretched across the sprawling rural farmlands, mountains, coastland and urban centers, the choices are limitless.

Maybe God is calling you to be a Church Planter. Those looking to start a church plant will find areas where the good news of Jesus needs to be lived out and proclaimed, while others can lead an existing church to reach their transforming community through replanting. Opportunities are here for the church planter who is vocational, bi-vocational or co-vocational.

Maybe you just want to try church planting out before you commit? Some church plants and existing churches are prepared to welcome eager interns who would like to serve alongside dynamic leadership teams for one year to test whether church planting or church leadership is their true calling. We can introduce you to the right people at the right time to develop a customized plan in a variety of settings.

And more than that, some of our church plants serve as relational training schools for those who have successfully gone through the assessment retreat process. These residencies help you build meaningful relationships with your mentors and the people you serve within the congregation. These day-to-day ministry experiences and successes will strengthen your resolve to plant a church on your own one day.

Church Plants also need partners! Pastors of existing churches find that their members are inspired to generously do more in their home churches after helping with a church plant.

Send Network is a partnership of people just like you—churches and church planters—planting churches everywhere for everyone. The Baptist Resource Network is dedicated to helping church planters and partnering churches make a difference through starting new churches in new places and among people groups throughout the region.

Photo caption: Church planting leaders pray over North American Mission Board president Kevin Ezell during the 2019 annual meeting of the Baptist Resource Network at the Radisson Harrisburg Hotel in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

Barry Whitworth

Barry has been in ministry for over 30 years, serving as a mission pastor, associate pastor, church planter, pastor, interim pastor, transitional pastor and planter, church planting strategist, lead church planting catalyst, church planting director, and now executive director.

Before his calling as Executive Director of the Baptist Resource Network in February 2017, he was a church planting missionary and served the Multiplying Churches Team Leader for the BRN.