It has been a little over a year since lead church planter, Dishon Mills, and his wife and Leadership Team member, Afrika Afeni Mills, arrived in Charlotte. Since their arrival, the church plant has had three major objectives: 1) discern the plant's strategy by the Holy Spirit; 2) get to know our neighbors in Steele Creek; and 3) equip the church plant's team members for ministry. By God's grace, we have been able to make significant progress in all of these areas.
The church plant has been able to discern its strategic direction and has clarity about how we move towards our launch and beyond. In addition to an overall strategy, the church plant recently developed indicators of launch readiness. These indicators are primarily focused on spiritual health and good missional rhythms, not just numbers. As a result, we have a good idea of the finish line of the pre-launch phase and what it will look like when we are ready to launch. The graphic below illustrates the church plant's strategy. Please contact us if you have any questions or comments about the plan.
Other articles in this newsletter will provide you with some good information about how we are connecting with our neighbors and equipping members for ministry. However, if you would like more details about our movements and activities, please follow us on Facebook. Since church plants in this part of the United States typically take between 2-3 years to launch, we feel we are making very good progress. Currently, the church plant has around 22 committed team members with several unaffiliated individuals who are showing great interest.
Now that we have established a strong foundation, in 2023, our primary focus will be gathering team members and moving towards launching the new congregation. Launching means that the church plant will become a congregation with a public Sunday meeting, with key leaders and ministries in place. Our small group strategy (see the newsletter article "Small but Mighty") will play a key role in gathering Core Team members. While our timeline may change, we have set a goal to launch by October 2023.
We want to recognize the members of the Leadership Team -- Lucy and Reuel Enerio, Michelle Fleming, Robert and Stacey Meade, and Afrika and Dishon Mills -- for their hard work over the past year. We are blessed to be led by a wonderfully talented group of people. Please pray for God to send workers to the church plant and to continue to lead us in becoming a healthy expression of the Church.
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