Cincinnati—The North American Mission Board has a massive church planting effort underway in Cincinnati and they need help.
The goal is to plant more than 70 new Southern Baptist churches, said Send City Missionary Travis Smalley, “and it all starts with a response to the fundamental call of the Great Commission.”
Smalley will lead a church planting vision tour of the Queen City on Sept. 28-29. He is asking Kentucky Baptists to help kick start the movement by first learning how churches can get involved.
During the two-day Cincinnati Send City Vision Tour, pastors, directors of missions and ministry leaders will hear from church planters in the region about potential missions partnerships in the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky metropolitan area.
“This vision tour is about connecting pastors to church planters,” Smiley said, and seeing to it that new churches have the resources needed to reach people for Christ.
According to the North American Mission Board, less than 14 percent of Cincinnati’s 1.6 million residents are affiliated with an evangelical church. More than half identify with no religious body at all.
Smalley said NAMB has designated more than 100 communities in and around the metropolitan area as sites for new church plants. So far, about 20 churches have been started.
As pastor of Lakota Hills Baptist Church in West Chester, Ohio, Smalley has had his hand in coaching five of the new churches.
“Jesus has commissioned us to take the gospel to ends of the earth, and one of the most effective ways to do that is planting churches.”
To register for the Cincinnati Send City Vision Tour, go to www.kybaptist.org/cincy. The cost is $50 per person and includes transportation while in Cincinnati, meals, lodging and admission to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game. Registration ends Sept. 19. (KBC)
Robin Cornetet