C2C helps churches plant churches

Canadian church planting network involved in USMB church planting

by Scott Thomas

Whose job is it to plant churches? The seminary? No. The denomination? No. The two minimalist millennial dudes meeting in their tiny house watching old Rob Bell videos? Uh, nope, I think. Church planting networks? Nope.

The job of planting churches belongs to other churches. The Book of Acts records the church sending missionaries to other places to proclaim the gospel and gather believers. But with so much attention required in the local church, multiplication doesn’t seem feasible. That’s where a church-planting network becomes valuable to the mission of the local church.

Home Depot has an ad campaign: “You can do it. We can help.” That’s the strategy of C2C Network: The local church can plant churches. C2C can help. Church leaders have access to an able friend who devotes 100 percent of its time, attention, money and energy to church planting. Like a brother with a pickup and a garage full of tools, C2C is eager to come alongside the local church to assess, coach, train and support leaders.

C2C Network exists to make disciples through equipping the local church to multiply and plant gospel-centered, Spirit-led and mission-focused churches. C2C gets its name from Psalm 72:8: “May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth!” (ESV). C2C desires that God will have dominion in our hearts, in our homes, in our churches and in our cities and nation. We believe the multiplication of gospel-centered churches is the key to that calling.

C2C Network, originating from the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (CCMBC), recently launched in the United States. As we have been doing in Canada, C2C Network will come alongside U.S. denominations and local churches to train leaders. C2C will serve as an additional resource for USMB and MB district church planting.

C2C US is working closely with USMB church planters Mario and Stephanie Trujillo in Pueblo, Colo. C2C is coaching Mario to lead a church plant downtown in a city with less than 8 percent who attend an evangelical church.

“Without C2C coaching and mentoring me and consulting with our leaders, we would not be able to establish this ministry hub as the only church in the City Center,” says Mario.

“It is so reassuring to know we aren’t alone in this calling,” adds Stephanie.

The Southern District Conference of MB Churches and Mission USA are also sponsors of this project.

C2C Network offers Incubator, an intense two-year, cohort-based learning community for church planters. The planters engage with one another in an adult learning format to develop the 10 dimensions necessary for an effective church planter. Through 16 modules, this nonsectarian curriculum includes gospel-centrality, self-leadership, missional engagement, preaching and others. The first Incubator for the U.S. is scheduled for Nashville beginning this month.

C2C Network is praying for multiplying leaders to emerge from within churches. Prayer is our main recruiting method. We pray at 10:02 every day that the Lord will send workers into his harvest (Luke 10:2). C2C is also praying that existing churches will multiply their mission locally, nationally and globally.

C2C and MB Mission are sponsoring a Multiply Conference in Fresno Calif., Feb. 22-23, 2017 to equip the local church to multiply and plant gospel-centered churches from sea to sea.

Scott Thomas is the director of C2C U.S. He and his wife, Jeannie, currently live in Nashville, Tenn. Thomas has served over 35 years as a lead church planter and church re-planter and as a board member on three international church-planting networks. Thomas is the co-author of Gospel Coach: Shepherding Leaders to Glorify God, published by Zondervan in 2012 as well as two other resources to help pastors develop leaders within the local church.