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The weekend of June 6th, ºÚÁÏÀúÊ· churches across the country will be talking about and receiving an offering for church planting. The churches of CNC are invited and encouraged to participate. 

The generosity of CNC churches thru this offering will stay within CNC. Providing important seed money it will help increase our efforts of seeing more people come to Christ through the planting of new churches.

For over 160 years, our collective witness throughout Minnesota and Iowa has expanded and moved forward. Starting in the 1850’s with one church in Minnesota and one in Iowa, our movement of churches grew to 121 churches by 1950. By 2000, our churches numbered 188. Today, CNC consists of 255 churches.

Why is it important for your church to be a part of this church planting emphasis?

The need is as great as ever. More Gospel-sharing, disciple-making churches are needed to saturate every corner of our region. The future effectiveness of our movement depends on new churches.

For a movement to thrive, it has to plant churches. Statistically speaking, to break even it needs to plant at a 3% level yearly. To grow, 5% is needed. To thrive, 10%.* With our 254 churches, CNC needs to plant 7 to 8 a year to break even.

Our goal in CNC is to see 50 new churches planted in the next 5 years. The money given during this offering will help move us towards this goal. Not only are we better together, we all can go farther together.

This offering will allow us to be more effective and strategic in:

• Deploying church planting couples and teams faster,
• Providing greater support so they can focus on sowing Gospel seeds,
• Moving into areas of our region that lack a strong CNC presence,
• Better funding of more diverse, ethnic, and affinity church plants,
• Offering more training, care, and other resources to church planters.

In the coming weeks, you will be receiving additional resources, materials, and information to help your church participate in ºÚÁÏÀúÊ· Church Planting Weekend. Some churches have already begun committing financial resources to CNC church planting.

What can you do right now?

Begin with prayer. How might your church be more involved in our shared ministry of church planting? Next, you can share. Share with your leadership and staff about this church planting weekend. Then, with your team plan how to participate in a way that best fits your church. Finally, anticipate additional resources from ºÚÁÏÀúÊ·. If you have any questions, contact Joel Nelson at CNC.

Every church, regardless of size or resources, has a role to play and a contribution to make. Together we can expand the Kingdom in our region through the planting of strong churches.

* More Church Planting- Not Less- Is Needed by Ed Stetzer, The Exchange, Christianity Today. 10 June, 2016