Welcome! My name is Bruce Redmond and I have directed Church Planting efforts for 14 years with the Evangelical Free Church of America. Currently I oversee new church starts in the EFCA Southeast District and you can check out our district page at www.sed-efca.org.
My passion is to see new disciple making faith communities reproduce new churches/communities. My life mission is to make disciples that make disciples that make disciples!
In these last years we have seen Church Planting take bold and aggressive faith steps throughout our areas of influence. We have seen our principles and strategies used in four countries and in 15 or more states. We see denominations working together like never before, sharing resources and the landscape of church planting efforts in our country has changed for the better. The EFCA is experiencing an 87% success rate in launching new churches. The good news is that in the last few years, the United States saw more new churches start then what we saw closed. There is still much more that needs to be done toward the transformation of lives and seeing disciples reproduce disciples.
We believe in a missional, incarnational and attractional focus in launching new faith communities. We believe the Spirit of God is raising up workers from the harvest field to begin new churches. We are experiencing all different kinds of strategies, different kinds of people, different kinds of visions and in all sizes of communities. The one single concern we have is the spread of the gospel through making disciples that make disciples and reproducing healthy disciple making churches.
If God is tugging at your heart we encourage you to contact us, take a look at the pages and resources here and begin to see how God may want you to play a part in what He is doing as Christ builds His church. Check out our "Hot Opportunities" list for the 9 states we can network you toward.
We desire to do our best to connect, equip and coach church planting couples toward being successful in launching new disciple making churches that reproduce. We want NO church planting couple left alone in the process! Our CP Team is ready to come alongside of you.
Our Ministry Affiliation
Join us in the Southeast because there is much to do and no state has over a 23% church attendance of its population and most states have a lot less church attendance. Our culture is a religious lost culture where people have settled for the form of Christianity but not walking in its power. The days of the Bible belt are declining. People around us states they where raised Baptist or are Baptist but not practicing. That says a lot doesn't it? People in the southern states need Jesus!
Our Mission is to bring pleasure to God by seeing new churches develop committed to making disciples that make disciples and reproducing healthy disciple making churches.
Our Motivation
Our motivation is the gospel and making disciples that make disciples. Too many times the church has been ineffective in making disciples and loving people while contextualizing the message of Christ to the surrounding community. The church is losing many of its children raised in the faith to the world system. Research says it is because they haven't experienced transformational churches. We need new faith communities that are intentionally developing an environment that focuses on being missional, incarnational and transformational. Whatever the reasoning now is the time for the church to be more intentional in it's strategies and the efforts to make disciples that make disciples. We need churches to get back on mission; the mission Jesus gave the church. We need churches focused on a healthy Christology allowing the Ecclesiology to come from a focus on Christ. As a district we are NOT about starting churches for convenience sake or simply to begin another Evangelical Free Church either. We need life giving and transformational churches where lives are changed and communities are impacted for Christ. The mission of the church is clear and starting new churches is still one of the best methods to establish a healthy DNA of multiplication personally and corporately.
Our Vision
Through God's grace and His leading we are seeking to see 1000 new disciple making churches begin. In the EFCA Southeast we are seeking the Lord on timing and new structures in launching new churches. These churches will be committed to intentionally making disciples and as God leads reproducing new churches. We feel that this will be like planting a franchise system not simply an addition system to assist church planters. Workers are needed, people of faith from every tribe and color. The time is now so please prayerfully consider joining us!
Our ABC's!
Our Church planting processes begin through Assessment, Boot Camp and Ongoing Coaching. Assessment interviews are for the planting couples and their teams. The Church Planter's Boot Camp focuses on principles and the non-negotiables of the process of launching a new church. We have seen this boot camp used in many cultures around the world. We envision coaching by experienced church planting pastors as being critical for the entire process. Numerous workshops are offered by district staff to develop leaders to help each new church be successful through the process. We desire that every church planter be individually coached.
Lay Driven Teams
Our district strategy includes a commitment to the priesthood of believers. We have been very successful in empowering lay teams to begin new churches without a pastor and most of those we have coached are active and healthy. Recognizing that God has specifically gifted each of His children, we desire to come alongside those of you seeking to use your giftedness to reach your community and region for Jesus. So how has God been speaking to you? We offer the same resources, coaching and networking for lay starts as we do church planting missionary pastors. Contact me if you sense God may be leading you this way! Consider a lay driven team church start.
Wherever you live, work and play God may be calling you to consider beginning a new church committed to principles of multiplication. The older saints used to say "bloom where you are planted"! I wonder what would really happen in America if the church (God's people) became the church for this century, the new generations and beyond until Jesus returns. Its Jesus' church not ours! So the question that faces all of us who know Christ is, what is God asking of me today to make a difference for tomorrow? Be a part a changing future, begin intentionally investing in others, begin or be a part of new church team that will take us deep into this next century for the cause of Jesus Christ.
Feel free to
contact me! This is all for the glory of God!
