Obedience to God is the mark of the believer. Romans 1:5 says, “to whom have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of the faith among nations for his namesake.” Obedience builds faith and at every step of obedience we can trust God to see us, send us, and empower us to share Jesus. In my life part of faith is being obedient to Jesus.
Here is an example, in Bible College, I wrote a paper called “God-Given Design.” It was then my heart softened as I was researching what planting a church in the city would look like. While researching I interviewed staff and leadership at World Impact. When I felt the Lord calling me to plant a church in the city, I built a relationship with Daren Busenitz, World Impact’s SVP of Mobilization, and we talked for months about church planting, partnering, and Jesus. And I obeyed, taking steps to start a church in the city.
What I found at World Impact was an organization that trained inner-city church planters. They focused on the poor, which aligned with my heart. Finding urban church planting training that saw the poor as called and worthy had been difficult. I talked to a lot of people and the phrase I kept hearing was, “I don't know anything about planting in the inner city.” I talked to many of organizations and they needed a lot of assessments and money for me to work with them. Most of the time our distinctives didn't match, but at World Impact I found what I was looking for.
I launched Faith City Church in St. Paul, MN. My team and I want to start a movement of churches that preach the Gospel and disciple people for and from the poor. We want it to be a movement. We are starting a church planting network called Praxis and Pillar, which means deed and faith. Planting a church with the support of World Impact means we had people who understood our context so we can continue in faith and deed to the work God called us to.
I highly recommend partnering with World Impact. There is no other training in America that can speak to and empower urban leaders like this. Every time I talk to someone who is church planting, they say, “I wish there were coaches and people who could help me in my city.” World Impact can.