December 2021
A note from Ted
Midwest Alliance Director
THE MIDWEST MISSION
December 2021
The Year in Review
What an encouraging year it has been for us here in the Midwest despite the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. As we wrap up this third year of the Midwest Alliance, I can’t help but give thanks to God for many things including the opportunity to visit several key locations in person, meeting with leaders and planters - making progress on several fronts in several locations, including Indianapolis, Louisville, Bloomington IL, Dayton OH, Detroit, St. Louis, Crown Point IN, Cedar Rapids IA, Lincoln and Omaha NE, Minneapolis, St. Cloud, and Fargo.
I’m also delighted to see and work with several new church planting efforts in the region such as:
Casey Cramer laying the groundwork for a plant in the Dayton area, a daughter church of South Dayton Presbyterian Church (Mike Littell, pastor).
Josh Crawford and Travis Stephens launching Covenant Community Church in Richmond, KY. They are averaging around 100 after 4 months of meeting for public worship.
Stephen Lawrence launching Exodus Church in Springfield, IL. They are averaging around 60 after just 4 months.
Mike McBride who has begun planting a new church in the south suburbs of Indianapolis, an area of over 500,000 with no PCA presence.
Billy Otten who is getting started on planting a church in the neighborhood in which he and his family live in Cincinnati, OH.
Matt Ryman who has begun the work planting Trinity Presbyterian in Wayzata, MN outside Minneapolis.
Steve Van Noort have arrived in Sterling Heights, a Detroit suburb, to begin networking and evangelism for the planting of Metro North Presbyterian Church.
Please pray for these men, their families, and these new works along with the other 26 church planting efforts currently going on in the Midwest. And pray for many more laborers for the harvest for the many additional locations that are targeted for a church plant around the region.
I also am delighted with and encouraged by:
Our first Catalyst event, a gathering of the key church and presbytery church planting leadership in the Midwest. Twenty five men and women came together to pray, learn, brainstorm, and plant in order to “catalyze” the work of Kingdom expansion in the Midwest.
Our third Foundations in Church Planting to train prospective and new church planters as well as church planting leaders in the nuts and bolts of planting a church. Sixty men and women gathered at Redeemer Presbyterian in downtown Indianapolis, a number from states outside the Midwest who took advantage of the opportunity.
Two webinars, “Launching Your Church Plant” and “Developing Your Church Plant” for those who had completed Foundations and were now at these respective stages with their plants.
And overall, I’m tremendously encouraged that so many more churches seem to be understanding and embracing the vision and ministry of the Midwest Alliance and the vision to grow from our current number of 245 churches and missions totaling about 47,000 people to 500 churches totaling about 100,000 people around 10% of which we pray will be conversion growth. I remind folks that we have only one PCA church for every 290,000 people in the Midwest (compared to about 1 per 76,000 in the Southeast region, for instance) and that the Midwest, with approximately 60 million of its 71 million people being functionally unchurched, is now the 10th largest mission field, and one of the most diverse mission fields, in the world.
So, I hope that you, like me, as we wrap up 2021, are not only greatly encouraged at what God is doing in our region to build His Church, but that you will be even more committed than ever to pray and work for continued gospel growth through the planting of new churches in all the many cities, towns, and villages of Midwest.
Merry Christmas to you all!
Ted Powers
Director of the Midwest Alliance