Since 2016, we have equipped 764 church plant teams through the Evangel School of Urban Church Planting around the world.
Our faithful certified Evangel deans have trained church plant teams in Bangladesh, East Africa, Mexico, Tanzania, Pakistan, Ethiopia, a closed country, and here in the United States.
We praise God for each of these church plant teams and continue to pray that God will bless their service to communities in their contexts.
Domestic Focus
As World Impact was birthed to proclaim Christ among the poor, domestically, it is of note that of the church plant teams equipped (to date) that only 15% of the teams were planting churches in communities experiencing poverty in America. On average, 9 domestic teams have been equipped each year.
With great confidence that our international partners who have equipped 85% of the church plant teams (to date) will continue their good work of offering church plant schools internationally, we are focusing on increasing church planting efforts among the poor domestically.
Curriculum Refresh
Toward this end, I am leading several teams of people who are working to revise our church planting curriculum, streamline our school format, create a robust domestic recruiting strategy, produce promotional efforts, raise funds to underwrite the schools, and grapple with logistical matters needed to host four flagship schools in strategic locations in the next fiscal year.
The first school will be held in Dallas in (September 2024) with three other schools being hosted in Indianapolis (November), Oakland (February 2025), and Los Angeles (May 2025).
The revised curriculum built upon the solid foundation of our current resources will serve as a principle-based strategy for planting churches which can be applied to many church planting contexts.
It is being designed for practical application by church plant teams who are planting a new church, those preparing to re-plant (re-start, revitalize, or re-launch) an existing church, those who are seeking a process for transitioning to the next generation of pastoral leadership, and those who are seeking to catalyze a church planting movement.
Pray for New Teams
We pray that God will bless our efforts and that our work will lead to 30-50 domestic new church plant teams who will be equipped with a 12-month strategic plan to plant churches in communities experiencing poverty in the United States.
As this is a tremendous undertaking, I would ask for your prayers for me and the teams working to prepare, facilitate, and coach teams through these schools and provide coaching after the schools.
Pray for those the Lord is calling to establish new churches and re-plant existing churches to proclaim Christ and transform communities experiencing poverty through the gospel.
For His Glory,
Ted Smith
