Church Plant Births a Cluster

In 1990, Pastor Kevin Adams decided to team up with Home Missions to plant Granite Springs Church in fast-growing South Placer County, California.

Little did he know that the church would become a catalyst for church planting and help spawn a new leadership training movement in this still-growing community.

Adams, who grew up in Michigan, was serving as pastor of Bethel Christian Reformed Church in Princeton, Minnesota, when he was contacted by Home Missions and other denominational representatives in 1990. The CRC had conducted numerous studies and decided it was the right time to plant a church in the area, which is near the state capital of Sacramento. At that time, thousands of new people were moving to South Placer County each year, and few of them had found a church home.

In 1991, Kevin and his wife Gerry decided to make the move and become California church planters. They spent their first summer getting to know the Lincoln, California area and searching for a launch team. Throughout this time, Kevin was certain of God’s hand in the process of starting a new church. “It was obvious to me that God was bringing people from across California and the country to this place, at this time, to start a church,” he says.

Within months, Kevin and Gerry were leading small group Bible studies and holding strategic planning meetings with local church representatives. Soon, a launch team of 15 adults and 10 children came together. This team, along with friends, contacted 12,000 people through a phone campaign, inviting them to the grand opening worship service of Granite Springs church. The team also sent out 25,000 invitations in the mail.

The hard work was worth it, as nearly 200 people attended that first service. Several weeks later, the same number of people also came to celebrate Easter. Eighteen years later, 400 people now worship at Granite Springs every Sunday, and the church reaches approximately 700 people through its many ministries. “Many of these people were not attending church at all before they came to our church,” marvels Adams.”

In addition to leading a long-lasting church plant that has touched many lives in the Lincoln community, Adams has also been able to use his leadership skills to help birth a new church multiplication movement in the Sacramento region. Currently, he’s serving as New Church Development Specialist for the Home Missions West Coast Regional Team. He also leads the Sierra Leadership Network, which is a Home Missions-sponsored training program for new church leaders. “God has really used Granite Springs to become the base for new ministries here,” Adams remarks.

Adams also leads a growing ministry cluster in the region, which includes ten CRC pastors from new and existing congregations that regularly meet to pray and discuss ways to collaborate and birth new churches. “Relational networks like this are wonderful ways to grow ministry,” says Adams. “It removes the isolation of ministry and encourages relationships while building in peer mentoring and coaching.”

For Adams, leading a growing church and helping direct a church planting and leadership training movement is all the work of God. “We have been richly blessed by the mercy of God, without a doubt,” he says. “And we’ve also had many faithful supporters over the years who have helped make this possible.”