New churches reaching immigrants in state

BSC Communications

In November a man traveled across North Carolina looking for Cambodians. Why? So the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina can reach them for Christ.

Ken Holland, who heads the convention's church-planting team, said the man spent five days traveling from Hendersonville to Wilmington, looking for Cambodian names in phone books and other locations. Soon, Holland hopes, a church planter can be assigned to begin reaching Cambodian immigrants and starting churches among them. Such an unorthodox move is becoming commonplace these days as Baptists hustle to reach the state's rapidly increasing immigrant population.

A church planting conference in late October brought together 58 church planters for a five-day training conference at Caraway Conference Center. Sessions were held in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Laotian and used language materials translated here in North Carolina. Members of seven ethnic/language immigrant groups plus African Americans were present and read the Bible aloud in their own languages during the week.

Holland said training included reinforcement of Bible-based, spiritual values, but also techniques designed to assure that a long-range vision of the eventual church could be formed. They prepare a base design, a picture of what they want their church to be, how it will function, he explained. The convention holds three such training conferences each year for church planters.

The workers identify mileposts to reach in the planting process.

Also, each church planter is assigned a mentor to work with him. Each person is endorsed by the local Baptist association as well.

Church planters put their churches in areas where there are few other churches to avoid siphoning members from other churches, he said.

As church planters begin work, the state convention staff presents them with a packet of demographic information about the people in the area. The numbers, charts and graphs help each church planter get a mental image of the typical unchurched person in the area, Holland said.

Church planting is one of the many ministries North Carolina Baptists support through Cooperative Program Missions Giving.