Church Planters Tell Their Stories

Joshua Kyong Won is reaching out to connect Koreans to a church plant in Orlando, Fla.

Ken Bowling wants to bring the gospel to students attending college in Nacogdoches, Tex.

Jon Vugteveen is seeking to start a church in Greenville, Mich.

And Victor Perez is working to share his Christian Reformed faith with Hispanic people in Denver, Colo.

All four are church planters for the CRC and recently had the chance to speak about their dreams and goals for their ministries as part of an orientation on the last day of THRIVE, a week-long church-planter training.

THRIVE was put on by Christian Reformed Home Missions and the Church Multiplication Team of the Reformed Church in America.

In all, a dozen CRC and RCA church planters took part in the training, at which they attended workshops on such topics as “Leadership Development—Discovering, Developing, and Deploying Leaders,” “Spiritual Empowerment,” “Stewardship—Raising Funds and Growing Stewards,” “Children and Youth,” and “Governance.”

“THRIVE offered the different workshops to help church planters plan out what they want to do and how they will be able to do it,” said Amy Schenkel, CRHM’s Catalyst Leader for New Church Development. “It was a great time of fellowship and networking among the CRC and RCA planters and trainers.”

The final day of the THRIVE process included an orientation at the RCA office in Grand Rapids and at the CRC office, also in Grand Rapids. The orientation was geared to give the church planters a sense of the resources specifically available to them from their denominations.

The group of church planters each had a few minutes to tell their stories and to sketch their hopes for the future.

In the CRC office, Joshua Kyong Won from Florida said he knows what challenges Korean people can face when they move to the city.

Many arrive in Orlando with great optimism for themselves and their families, but the reality of life in the community can be hard.

“Many people are coming, and they can’t get connected to local Korean people,” he said. “We’ve decided we need to start a church for Koreans. … Many are by themselves and need a church to support them.”

Of the estimated 8,000 Koreans now living in the Orlando area, 90 percent do not attend church—and that number is much higher for college-age students, said Kyong Won.

He said his church is only three months old and is small, made up of four families and 12 college students. But God is slowly bringing people in and changing their hearts.

“It is a blessing to be doing what we are doing. We love them all and connect them to God’s grace,” said Kyong Won.

Ken Bowling said he was drawn to begin a campus ministry in the Texas town of Nacogdoches because he came to the Christian faith when he was attending college.

He knows that college can be a crucial time in which young people are sorting through questions about their relationship to God.

“Many of them are already indoctrinated by a notion that wants to tell them that God does not exist,” said Bowling.

“So much needs to be done with these students. I believe God has called me to the campus to pull them out of their lives to a life of service and study for the glory of God.”

Jon Vugteveen said he left his position as pastor of a church in Allegan, Mich., to serve as a church planter for River Rock Church, itself a church plant in Rockford, Mich.

The son of a minister, he said his path to becoming a pastor and church planter had some stops along the way. He decided at one point to turn his back on God, falling into a world of selfishness and darkness.

Change finally came some years ago when he walked into a Promise Keeper’s rally at a stadium outside of Detroit. Being with so many other men was electrifying, but he felt like he was alone with God.

“I got on my knees that day, and ever since my life has been hard, and yet I’ve been moving ahead,” he said.

As he works to build the church in Greenville, Mich., Vugteveen said he will do what he did in Allegan--use his own experiences, coupled with his faith in God, to reach out to others.

“I work with people who may be beaten down and talk to them about a God who can provide hope,” said Vugteveen, whose goal is to launch the new church early next year. “I want to plant a church to motivate people to engage and move into the mystery of Christ.”

Victor Perez, who is planting a church in Colorado, said he was never able to find a close relationship with God when he grew up Catholic.

But that changed quickly when he attended a CRC congregation with the woman who is now his wife.

“From the first day, I saw something. I felt relaxed,” he said. “I felt welcomed and warmed and knew it was the Holy Spirit and got to know Jesus in a different way.”

As Perez starts a new church among Hispanic people in Denver, his hope is to help others come to know God on a personal level, just as it happened to him, he said.

“Our mission is to help people understand the fullness of the Spirit through Jesus and to experience the grace and true hope that flows down on us from God,” he said.

Jon Huizenga, pastor of River Rock Church in Rockford, Mich., said that planting new churches is a necessary ministry for established congregations.

But it is a process that requires prayer, patience, and persistence, he said.

In the case of River Rock, it has taken a few years to get to the point where it can support Vugteveen and a River Rock elder in this new venture.

They did a survey of the Greenville area to see if it was the right place to plant a church. They also did a prayer walk in Greenville, seeking the will of God on whether they should start a church there.

In the end, they decided to move ahead, even if that means some current River Rock members may need to move to the new church to help it get off the ground.

Church planting, he said, is critical in order for the Christian church to grow.

“We believe that in order to announce the kingdom of God to all nations, we need multiplication and not addition,” said Huizenga.