After 10 years of ministry, Branches Outreach Mission, a USMB congregation in Providence, Kentucky, closed, effective Dec. 30, 2024, following the retirement of pastor Robert Townsend.
“Last year was challenging for the church in terms of trying to restart after COVID-19,” says Terry Hunt, pastor of The Life Center and former Eastern District minister. “The Mission agreed it was best to close.”
Branches Outreach Mission (BOM) began in 2014 and joined USMB’s Eastern District in September 2023.
In 10 years, the congregation provided support for 108 churches in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is where the idea for BOM was born.
A motley crew
In 2012, Townsend and four other men from their Southern Baptist church in Kentucky traveled to DRC to serve alongside a missionary and take turns preaching in churches.
“We would sit around the table at night and discuss how we would set up a church—if we were starting from scratch—to make the church most effective under God’s direction,” Townsend says. “When we returned home, the passion didn’t die.”
Sensing a call to plant a church, Townsend gathered a small group for a Sunday evening Bible study in his home. The study quickly grew from six people to 23, prompting its members to rent an old building and organize as a church.
“Taking the ideas that came from the ‘round table’ meetings in Lubumbashi (which were set upon the early church), we set to work, trying to reach those who were unchurched, unreached or untaught,” Townsend says. “We were a motley crew. We had people who visited drunk. I met a stripper once at the Sunday service, but we just plugged along. People were being saved, baptized and discipled. That’s what we were there for.”
Meanwhile, Townsend stayed in contact with his liaison in Lubumbashi, Jeremie Mulunda, who had served as interpreter during the trip.
“When we started our church, I asked Jeremie why he didn’t have a church of his own, since he was an administrator for a school for pastors,” Townsend says. “He said that it was too expensive. Knowing what the average citizen of DRC makes, I asked the Branches crew if they wanted to plant a church in Congo, which they jumped on with both feet.”
A multiplication model
That conversation led Mulunda to plant a home church, using Branches’ model. The church grew to 167 members, Townsend says, prompting Branches to rent a building for the congregation.
“News got out in Lubumbashi about the church, and the churches that we had preached in wanted to know if they could come in under us,” Townsend says. “Much of this was due to government regulations on churches.”
Townsend compiled a statement of beliefs to send to Mulunda. As more pastors showed interest in joining the effort, Mulunda held a conference to cast vision and share a statement of beliefs of the Branches Association.
“Our model calls for pastors to train young men to be pastors and then send them out to plant a home-church,” Townsend says. “It’s a model of multiplication, instead of addition.”
Townsend consulted the Southern Baptist Convention for advice.
“They told me that they didn’t know what to tell me,” he says. “They had been trying to do this for years but couldn’t figure out how to start. It was all God.
“Next thing that you know, there were 32 more churches that were either re-opened, planted, or had come into association with us. By the time it was all said and done, there were 108 Branches churches in Democratic Republic of Congo scattered over seven cities.”
Meanwhile, in Kentucky, as BOM tried to find its identity, the congregation recognized alignment with Mennonite Brethren theology and joined USMB’s Eastern District. However, attempts to link the Congolese Branches churches to the MB church in Congo were unsuccessful.
Is our mission completed?
At home, BOM focused on training church leaders.
“The problem was, when we got them trained, God would call them away to serve somewhere else,” Townsend says. “Come to find out, in all of God’s wisdom he had made us a center for discipleship. It was extremely frustrating at times but very rewarding at the same time. In 10 years, we sent out two pastors, a pastor’s wife and a music leader and planted 108 churches. Only by the guidance and power of God could something like this happen.”
BOM sought to help the churches in DRC become self-sustaining, which happened in early 2024.
“We went from being a church on a mission to a group of Christians going to church,” Townsend says. “We had 25 people left and money to continue forward, but the wind had gone out of our sails.
“After much praying and fasting, the music leader asked, ‘Is it possible that our mission was to plant churches in Congo, and the mission is complete?’ It was! After 10 years of serving together, we took the biblical knowledge, spiritual knowledge and mission mindedness that we had learned together at Branches and went to serve in other churches. We all love each other deeply and stay in contact, encouraging each other, but we are each going on our own mission, serving our mighty God, and loving on a new group of people.”
BOM held its final service in August 2024. The congregation sent its leftover money to DRC and its equipment to sister USMB congregation Christian Center the Hand of God in Hamilton, Ohio.
Janae Rempel Shafer is the Christian Leader associate editor. She joined the CL staff in September 2017 with six years of experience as a professional journalist. Shafer is an award-winning writer, having received three 2016 Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence and two Evangelical Press Association Higher Goals awards in 2022 and 2025. Shafer graduated from Tabor College in 2010 with a bachelor of arts in Communications/Journalism and Biblical/Religious Studies. She and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
