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Did You Know???
· 7 out of 10 West Virginians are lost
· 222,000 people in our association are unchurched
· our 22 churches only baptized 68 people last year (7 churches did not baptize anyone)
· "business as usual" is not getting the job done!!!

Here is a list of the counties in our association, along with the percentage of unchurched people in each county and the number of new churches needed in order to have a church for every 2,000 unchurched persons -

COUNTY	% OF UNCHURCHED	# OF CHURCHES NEEDED
Barbour	72	4
Harrison	55	15
Lewis	64	3
Marion	57	15
Monongalia	72	26
Preston	67	7
Randolph	61	6
Taylor	67	4
Upshur	73	7
Webster	81	1

 

It is a God-sized task. Pray about what God would have YOU do.

Why do people & churches not want to start new churches?

"There are plenty of churches already."
*Yes, there are a lot of churches in our area, but are they preaching Jesus Christ, & that the only way to be saved is through Him? In many cases, they are not.

*Even with all the existing churches, 220,000 people in our 10 counties are unchurched. In Monongalia county, 72% of the people are unchurched. In Harrison county, 55% are unchurched. In Randolph county, 61% are unchurched. The average for our 10 counties is 66.9% - that means 2 out of every 3 people in our 10 counties don't go to church!

*Another aspect is the need for different types of churches that can best reach specific segments of West Virginians.

"It costs too much money."
It is true that some church plants do require a significant amount of funding. In such cases, several church planting partners (other churches) could join together to fund the new work. However, some approaches to church planting cost little or nothing. We must look at these approaches, so churches can effectively plant more churches.

The fear that it will hurt my church.
Actually, planting a new church in a community tends to increase attendance in existing churches. New churches mainly reach unchurched persons; thus there is no threat to existing churches. Church planting is a productive evangelistic method, and each of our "Jerusalem's" cannot be reached with the gospel without aggressive, evangelistic church planting. Remember the saying, "You can't out give God," applies to churches as well. Observation reveals that churches that generously give away members & money to start new churches are rewarded many times over by God.

So - what's your excuse???