Cities Mark Bullseye of NAMB Church Planting

Image by iStock.com/Kirkikis

BY DAVID ROACH

Fourteen years after planting Journey Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Will Browning was settling in for the long haul. He had just delivered to church leaders his vision for the next twenty-five years. Then the fateful phone call came.

A friend from seminary called to ask if Browning would consider leading church planters for the North American Mission Board (NAMB) in Los Angeles, 2,500 miles away from home. It seemed crazy. At first, Brown tried to “Jesus juke” his way out of the new assignment, he said, claiming he couldn’t move his fourteen-year-old son. But God led, and Browning began work in July 2021 as Send City missionary for Los Angeles.

“When I tried to explain to my family that I was moving to California, they seemed to think, ‘Who would move to California?’ Every joke that has ever come from a South Carolinian is about California,” Browning quipped. “But when we dig in with these people, we actually see that we have a lot of commonalities.”

His message to Southern Baptists: If a South Carolina pastor can help reach Los Angeles, any

Some of our urban areas have lostness rates similar to the most unreached parts of the world, so the need is great. But this is also where we are seeing some of the most encouraging results. In cities that used to be places where church plants went to die, we are seeing new life and real church planting movements and God is blessing the faithfulness of our churches.”

Kevin Ezell, president

North American Mission Board

Christian can play a role in reaching North America’s major cities for Christ.

NAMB President Kevin Ezell echoed that sentiment. Every Southern Baptist church can play a role in reaching the vast mission field of North American cities, he said. NAMB is committed to facilitating that work.

“We help Southern Baptists plant churches everywhere for everyone, but we started the city emphasis because more than eighty percent of North Americans live in and around large cities,” Ezell said. “If Southern Baptists are serious about reaching North America for Christ, we must aggressively plant churches in our population centers.

“Some of our urban areas have lostness rates similar to the most unreached parts of the world, so the need is great,” he said. “But this is also where we are seeing some of the most encouraging results. In cities that used to be places where church plants went to die, we are seeing new life and real church planting movements and God is blessing the faithfulness of our churches.”

‘IMPACT THE WORLD’ NAMB has identified thirty-two strategic metro areas in the US and Canada and labeled them Send Cities—focal points for church planting. Those cities span every region of North America. The strategy is fitting, said Steve Canter, Send Network regional director for the Northeast, because cities must be central to any effort at reaching America with the Gospel.

“So much of contemporary culture is shaped by our cities. If we can impact those cities, we can really impact the world,” Canter said. In the Northeast alone, Boston is “the educational capital of North America, if not the world,” New York is “the financial capital,” and Washington “the political capital.”

The magnitude of the task has left mission leaders asking whether enough Southern Baptists can be mobilized to reach North America’s cities.

With forty-one state conventions and thirty-two Send Cities, if each state convention adopted a Send City, we could have a state convention connected to each major city we are trying to reach.”

Will Browning, chief church planting strategist—Los Angeles North American Mission Board

In Los Angeles, the answer is a resounding yes. Browning has a strategy to do it. First, he and his team divided Greater Los Angeles’s nineteen million residents into three regions: Los Angeles County, which Browning calls “super urban”; Orange County, the “nice side of town” that resembles stereotypical Southern California; and the Inland Empire east of the city with its “suburban feel.”

Browning assembled a team of pastors in each area to support church planting there and recruited a “lead partner” church for each region—a congregation somewhere else in the US that can adopt the region and recruit other churches to help with church planting there. He’s aiming for a five-year relationship with each lead partner as they saturate the city with church plants. Lead partners also will facilitate care for the spiritual and physical needs of church planters.

Forest Hills Baptist Church in Nashville became lead partner for the Inland Empire in January. Pastor Jay Hardwick said the role will involve “multiple layers of partnership” with Send

Will Browning. Image Courtesy of NAMB

Members of CityLight Church in Burbank, California, lead worship. Image Courtesy of NAMB

NAMB Send City— Los Angeles, California

NAMB has identified thirty-two strategic metro areas in the US and Canada and labeled them Send Cities—focal points for church planting. Those cities span every region of North America.

LA. Forest Hills will serve NAMB’s LA leadership team, support church planters financially and through mission trips, and aid churches seeking to send planters to the Inland Empire.

Taking pastors of other churches on vision trips to LA is another facet of the lead partner role. Forest Hills will do that at least once each year.

“The avenues of partnership are diverse enough that any church of any size can be engaged,” Hardwick said. “It’s not how much you can give or how many people you have. It’s really more about your heart for seeing the mission of God and the incredible opportunities.”

This year’s SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, presents one opportunity for churches to join the Send LA team. Browning hopes twenty pastors will agree to stay an extra day after the convention to see God’s work among area church plants.

EVERY MAJOR CITY State conventions are another layer of the mission partnership in each Send City. In LA, that includes the California Southern Baptist Convention, which Browning calls part of the “family focused on mission together” for Southern California. The South Carolina Baptist Convention (SCBC) is another key partner.

Through the SCBC’s relationship with Browning, a native South Carolinian, it is connecting churches of all sizes with the work in Southern California. That occurs through vision trips for pastors subsidized by the state convention and annual mission trips to LA for college students involved in South Carolina Baptist Campus Ministries. Additionally, the lead partner for Orange County is First Baptist Church in Taylors, South Carolina.

Partnering with a Send City “doesn’t take money,” SCBC executive director Gary Hollingsworth said. “It really takes people more than anything.”

While Browning’s focus is LA, his vision for state convention partnerships extends much further.

The avenues of partnership are diverse enough that any church of any size can be engaged. It’s not how much you can give or how many people you have.”

Jay Hardwick, pastor

Forest Hills Baptist Church Nashville, Tennessee

“With forty-one state conventions and thirty-two Send Cities, if each state convention [in the Southern Baptist family] adopted a Send City, we could have a state convention connected to each major city we are trying to reach.”

Baptist associations are yet another layer of the partnership. They can generate interest and recruit pastors for vision trips, Browning said, with state conventions helping to sponsor the trips.

The “bullseye” for the Send Cities effort, Canter said, “is to help each church become a multiplying church.”

“A multiplying church,” he said, “would discover, develop, and deploy church planting teams from within.”

DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.