On the Subject of Church Planting

Many people are unaware that Pat and I have been involved with church planting in our past ministry experiences. Our first church plant, Seedtime and Harvest Church (1984-89) has continued to impact the city of San Diego for the past 25 years with the fruitful ministry and the River of Life Church (1994-2002), now River of Life Foursquare Church located in Lakewood, has been winning souls and getting people filled with the Spirit for the past 15 years. These aren’t mega-churches but they have always been fruitful churches, planted on the solid foundation of the Word and the Spirit and the pastors we turned each of these churches over to have carried out that ministry effectively and faithfully for all these years. 

 No matter what title is pronounced upon someone, true apostolic ministry is evidenced by the ability to be a catalyst of new ministries and new churches. This anointing is evident from early in a person’s ministry.  This kind of ministry start up was nothing new to my husband Pat. He started a Christian coffee house outreach ministry back in 1978, just a couple years after being saved, that reached the Capitol Hill area and often had 15-20 witnessing teams on the streets each Friday and Saturday night bringing in the lost, often seeing a dozen or more new births each weekend. When Pat was hired on staff at Happy Church (now ORCC) as a youth and singles pastor in 1979, this anointing once again proved itself when the Denver Singles was birthed in 1981, one of the largest singles’ ministries in the city, ministering to 400-500 singles through a seven day a week program.  And even a few years ago, after we left our last church plant and spent a brief time at the Smoky Hill Vineyard, Pat raised up a ministry to several hundred people living out on east Colfax that is still being carried out by that church. At his present position, he keeps raising new ministries as the Lord leads.

Because of earlier start ups, we were not surprised when the Lord called us to San Diego in 1984 to plant Seedtime and Harvest Church.  Church planting in our circle was really pretty unheard of at that time. In fact the phrase, “pioneering a church” was often used back then because like the old pioneers, you pretty much launched out on your own to get it done. So that’s what we did. We sold our house and like Abraham left for a land where we didn’t know anyone and no one knew us.  Dr. Ken Stewart’s Grace Church in Tulsa, got behind us to pay for our meeting place for a year for which we will always be grateful. Other than their generosity, it was all by faith. Of course that was very challenging, but in truth, like the old saying, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” or as some pastors said back then about adventures like this, “If it’s God, it’ll happen; if it’s not, it won’t last.” God had to prove He was in it. At the time, we would’ve liked more support but today, we’re glad we didn’t get it because we would have missed the many miracles He worked on our behalf, like the hundred fold return on a $100 offering Pat gave for another pastor’s building program that came the next day in a $10,000 check for our church.  He gets all the glory for both of these churches beginnings and their continuing contribution to His Kingdom. While establishing Seedtime in San Diego, we also had a hand in helping at least three other churches startup and become fruitful ministries to that area.

River of Life was planted the same way. Happy Church generously took an offering for us and we again launched out. We waited and waited for God to send us to another city but He wanted us on the west side of Denver, so we obeyed. We felt He wanted River planted by word of mouth and through small groups so people came to the church only because they knew someone else there. Over 70% of our people were in small groups. Over the eight years we pastored it, this church brought hundreds to the Lord and to the baptism of the Spirit. We had baptisms every couple months and always had a dozen or more to baptize.

 Some people assume because we didn’t stay in San Diego with the Seedtime church, that it must have failed. Or that because we aren’t with River of Life anymore that it must have shut down. That is misunderstanding how church planting takes place. Both of these churches are still thriving and blessing the Kingdom. We just obeyed God when our part of the planting was finished. After all if Paul had stayed at his first church plant, Christianity would’ve only reached Cyprus. Many church planters don’t stay with their church plants. They raise up or search out a pastor to take over and continue the ministry. The birthing of new churches takes place so many different ways, it’s a fascinating study.  We met one man and his wife in San Diego who had planted over a hundred churches in Australia and in the states independently. The longest they stayed at any one was less than a year, sometimes only a few months. While completing my degree, I took church planting courses at Colorado Christian University in the early ‘90’s and subsequently taught those courses at ORCC’s Bible College.  In the late 90’s, we had the privilege of being on a church planting team development group for the Rocky Mountain Foursquare District, at the district’s invitation.  What I noticed is not any of these methods are the same.  CCU’s church planting courses were a synopsis of how many of the Baptist “Community” churches were planted in our area which involved an in depth study of demographics, team member qualification, and strategic planning that often takes a year or more to implement but results in solid churches that remain. See www.churchplantingvillage.net for more on this.  Many of the Evangelical Presbyterian or PCA churches in the Denver Metro area were planted by one church planting team. We met with a member of that team back in 1994 to find out how they went about it with such success. They had a different method but the same basics of team development, community preparation, but instead of starting small groups they held a mass meeting usually at the neighborhood elementary school to launch a new church. There is now a EPCA church planting organization called Acts 29 (www.acts29network.org ) or Evangelical Free at  www.plantingchurches.com. Even the AOG holds church planting boot camps. Just Google “church planters, Denver, CO” and you’ll get a hundred sites on church planting groups.  The Foursquare Church has an extensively developed church planting school that also qualifies would-be church planters to make sure they have the right gifting, experience and solid marriages to plant a church. Since the nineteen thirties, Foursquare has been planting and sustaining churches worldwide (www.reachmore.foursquare.org). As we worked with our district’s church planting group, we heard of some couples who couldn’t qualify, at least at that point in their ministries, and we met a number of successful church planters, but we also witnessed a few starts that failed or never grew past the original group.   

Lastly, there are lots of churches across the US sending out “daughter” churches successfully.  These mother churches have an anointing to raise up and train pastors in ministry, then send them to un-churched areas. Some mother churches have hundreds of “daughters” across the nation. Most have a church planter school that prepares a team over a prolong period of time to know how to deal with the very different mindset and challenges of starting a new church. Startup churches don’t have nurseries, children’s church, or youth groups in place but these are developed as the right people are drawn in to head up these areas. Many people get excited about “going to” a new church start up but don’t realize if they are truly called there, they won’t be “going to” it but will be serving in these areas. We were amazed at the people the Lord brought to us to fill these ministry positions. The other interesting thing was that as the church grew past a certain size, we would see the original “helpers” leave to go to another small church where they would be needed again. Small churches have a completely different mindset than larger churches which is quite a paradigm shift and completely unrealized until it is experienced.

Pastors Marilyn and Wally have been equipping pastors for other churches for years “unofficially.” I’d love to know just how many churches have their ties back to the Hickeys through pastors who have come out from their ministry. They’ve been apostolic all these years – we certainly have always considered ORCC (Happy Church) our mother church and they have always been and will always be our “parents in the faith.”