Church Planting Catalyst - Sean Lathrop

HPBC Annual Report for 2021-2022

Thank you for the privilege of serving the churches that make up the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention. My primary area of focus is church planting.

“We see every Hawaii Pacific Baptist Church working together to be leaders in impacting God’s Kingdom throughout the Pacific and Asia. Together we build and sustain a stronger Kingdom network as we leverage the SBC network to help plant churches.” One of the main ways we do this is by partnering with Send Network (church planting) of the North American Mission Board (NAMB).

Church Plants and Their Sending Churches Resourced by HPBC Church Planting: Church Planter/Plant: Sending Church (*): Jay & Melissa Haynes, Waiehu Community Church Kahului Baptist Church Chris & Sai Thomas, Cross Church Yokosuka Yokohama Int’l BC Steven & Monica Kang, Waikiki Korean Church (Replant) Waikiki BC David & Nancy Whitehead, Connections Church Waikiki BC Brad Dell, Restoration Community Church GracePoint Church Elise & Mrs. Lucy Tafao, Manuia Bible Fellowship Aina Haina BC

(*) Sending Church: the primary partner of a church plant, taking responsibility for the plant until it is strong enough to stand on its own. Providing guidance and accountability for the church planter are key roles for the Sending Church (sometimes referred to as the Sponsoring Church). The health of a church planter often depends on a strong sending partnership.

A Supporting Church: partners with other churches by praying, participating, and providing for a church planter, his family, and the new church. A Multiplying Church: churches that discover, develop, and deploy church planting teams from within their own context are rare. But this must be the focus of more churches if we are to see churches everywhere for everyone across the Hawaii Pacific and throughout the world. HPBC church planting seeks to help every church take their next step toward multiplication.

HPBC/NAMB Resources The Multiplication Pipeline is a systematic and experientially based tool that helps train leaders and helps mobilize congregations for missions. The Pipeline starts with personal development and theological formation; then focuses on missiology and disciple-making. When appropriate, it includes calling to ministry, and church planting. The Multiplication Pipeline is free to SBC churches. Go to namb.net/send-network to access the Multiplication Pipeline, as well as many other valuable helps for missional living. Additional resources can be found at hpbaptist.net/churchplanting.

A church planting movement requires robust prayer, God-called church planters, and Sending Churches that embrace the kuleana of parenting a new congregation. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field,” Luke 10:2. Please pray that our churches will call out the called. I praise God for his empowering presence for this Kingdom expansion.

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