October 30, 2000
Light Up Texas emphasis expands
to offer church-starting conference
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--Texas needs more light, at least the kind provided by new congregations, according to Texas Baptist leaders.
___"Light Up Texas," a statewide church-starting campaign, will enter its second year in 2001 after surpassing its goal of 100 new congregations on Launch Day 2000, said Fred Ater, coordinator of the Church Starting Institute of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___The 2001 emphasis will add a new component, a church-starting conference March 22-24 in Waco. That will be followed, in congregations throughout the state, by Church Starting Commitment Day March 25 and then New Church Launch Day Sept. 16.
Light Up Texas
Conference: March 22-24
Commitment Day: March 25
Launch Day: Sept. 16
___This year, 104 congregations began to meet on Launch Day, Ater said.
___"We're trying to energize a church-starting movement, trying to enable it, expand it, make it borderless," he said. "We're hoping there will be this enthusiasm to do more."
___There are signs that such a movement may be building, he said.
___More churches than before are becoming involved as sponsoring churches, and churches are seeing what others have been accomplishing through starting congregations, Ater said. "It's beginning to pick up momentum."
___Also, more sponsoring churches are getting involved in beginning more than one church at a time, he added. "We're seeing that multiple church starts can happen and be very effective."
___Leadership of new congregations also is taking a new twist. More believers with no seminary training are "being called out by God and are being trained by their pastors" to start new churches, Ater said. "The Holy Spirit is leading these men to be involved in this way."
___An estimated one-third of church starts in 2000 are being led by laity, he said. "The reason that is happening, we don't know; but it is happening, and we know they are effective church planters."
___To propel this movement, Texas Baptists are involved in Light Up Texas.
___The conference in Waco will feature Craig Van Gelder, professor of congregational mission at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.; Bob Roberts Jr., founding pastor of NorthWood Church for the Communities in Keller; Tillie Burgin, executive director of Mission Metroplex in Arlington; and Carlos Navarro, pastor of Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville.
___Commitment Day, March 25, will be a day in which churches are asked to pray about and look into the possibilities of starting new congregations, Ater said. "It will prepare a church to begin a new work if that's what God wants them to do."
___Launch Day, Sept. 16, will be a day for the sponsoring church to make a "concerted effort" to provide support, location and a time for beginning a new congregation, he said. It is not a day for constituting a new church. Rather, it is when a group begins to meet, including some Bible study and devotional or preaching time.
___It indicates "this group is now on the road to becoming a church," Ater said. It is their goal. "They may have been meeting as a Bible study unit for months," but the group now changes its focus from being a cell group to becoming a church.
___For more information, contact Ater at the Church Starting Center, (214) 828-5371, or e-mail him at ater@bgct.org.
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