Continuing Church Planting Legacy
I pastored for fifteen years in Salem, Iowa, the oldest Friends Church west of the Mississippi.
It was here that Nathan and Esther Frame met and were married in 1857. This dynamic couple went on to preach across the country and call Friends to church planting. Today, we have an opportunity to follow up on this timeless vision!
Driven for the Kingdom
I have had the joy of planting two churches. Nothing compares to seeing lost people be found and come to know Christ as their personal Savior! The Frames said,
“We are now in a crucial period of our history and must go forward; to stand still is to die, and lose all that has been gained…to go on in the good work already begun means sacrifice; but it also means victory- thousands upon thousands of souls saved and Apostolic and primitive Christianity revived.”
That was 1889!
Those early American Friends followed the example of the Valiant 60 of England and took the Gospel around the world. New churches and yearly meetings were planted in Nebraska, Oregon (Northwest) and California (Southwest) by Iowa Yearly Meeting. Our yearly meeting started works in Jamaica, Kenya and Cuba. As the Frames said, this required great sacrifice.
You didn’t have interstates and jet planes to transport you in those days. Our first yearly meeting superintendent, John Henry Douglas, crossed the Rocky Mountains twenty-nine times in establishing those yearly meetings. Oh, for that kind of dedication! Iowa Yearly Meeting needs that sense of urgency! All of us do!
Hindrances to Church Planting
In 1996, I did my doctoral thesis on “An Analysis of the Church Planting Strategy of Iowa Yearly Meeting.” I had over 130 questionnaires returned for my research to discover the top five hindrances to church planting. Here they are:
We have a lack of financial resources to start a church properly.
There aren’t enough Friends in the new community.
We are afraid of draining off leadership and resources from the established church.
There has been a lack of vision on the part of our local church.
There are plenty of churches in that area.
I appreciated those honest responses. I wonder if they are any different now some 28 years later. How do you think our Savior feels about these excuses?
Is God Still Speaking?
Some of us felt God speaking even as He did to Nathan and Esther Frame. In 2013, we held our first National Friends Church Multiplication Conference. It has grown over the years and has become the International Friends Church Multiplication Conference. Our last two conferences, in 2020 and 2022, were held online thanks to covid. It showed us how we could reach even more people! We had over 500 registrations from 26 states and 26 countries.
This year, we are doing a hybrid conference with it 100% online as well as live sessions in three national locations. The dates are November 13-15. Click below for more info.
Are You Listening?
Would you pray with us that God would do it again?! We want to look with God’s eyes at these realistic hindrances and see what He has for us today. It has been 135 years since the Frames set out that vision. It remains the same for it is The Great Commission to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel…” It is the Great Commandment in John 13:24 - to “love one another as Christ loved us.” Our world needs this Gospel love today more than ever.
We are celebrating George Fox’s 400th birthday this year. So, we have chosen his vision, which resonates with us as it did with the Frames.
From Pendle Hill: “There is a great people to be gathered!”
Find out more details about the upcoming International Friends Church Multiplication Conference happening November 13-15, 2024.
