February 17, 2003

BGCT church-starting plan running strong
___By John Hall
___Texas Baptist Communications
___Efforts to start 777 churches in Texas by 2004 are ahead of projections for the first year of the campaign by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___The BGCT's Church Starting Center facilitated more than 260 church starts last year, according to Director Abe Zabaneh. That puts the BGCT ahead of its goal of 150 church starts for 2002.
___The BGCT's Genesis Project aimed for 150 church starts in 2002, the launch year, to be followed by an accelerated pace in 2003 and 2004.
___At the current pace, Texas Baptists would start 792 churches by the 2004 deadline.
___The Genesis Project emerged out of a desire to increase the Baptist presence throughout Texas, Zabaneh said. In 1960, Texas had one Baptist church for every 2,500 residents. By 2000, the ratio had dropped to one Baptist church for every 4,000 residents.
___That ratio is significantly worse in some areas of the state and among some demographic groups.
___In addition to lowering the resident-to-church ratio, starting new churches fosters evangelism, he said, explaining that newer churches tend to focus on outreach and evangelism rather than programming.
___Established churches baptize one person for every 50 members on average, while church starts baptize one person for every 10 members.
___New churches also tend to match their surroundings better and have an easier time relating to those around them, he added.
___The BGCT works to start churches that will reach all ethnic and cultural groups in Texas, with a strong push to increase the number of Hispanic churches.
___The 777-church goal challenged Texas Baptists, and they have responded, Zabaneh said. He thanked churches and associations of all sizes that have started new works to reach non-Christians.
___"Sometimes the perception is you have to be a large church with lots of resources to start a church," Zabaneh said. "Any church can start a church."
___Every Texas Baptist can be involved in church starting by praying, giving to the BGCT New Church Fund and the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions and getting involved, Zabaneh said. Also, members of other churches can help church starts with specialized tasks such as technical help until members can take over.
___"If everybody's involved, it really wouldn't take that much to start 259 churches a year," Zabaneh said.
___Whil he is "amazed" by last year's results, Zabaneh emphasized much work remains to be done.
___"It is a challenging goal, but sometimes it takes challenging goals to rally people."

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