May 14, 2009
“The Metropolitan District has been hit with a powerful flood,” says Bruce Terpstra, district superintendent. “We have a flood of new church plants!” Terpstra, who couldn’t explain why this phenomenon is taking place, reports 20 church-planting proposals submitted to the district during the past six months, with 15 in progress.
“The district has a strong DNA for church planting,” says Terpstra, “and one reason [for the increase] may be a new funding strategy of matching contributions from the local church.”
Regardless of the reason, it is obvious that God is at work in the Metro District. One church started with an Alpha course dinner, attended by 101 people. The following week, 60 adults attended the dinner along with a table full of teens who showed interest in the Lord.
Most new church plants are daughter churches, but one non-Alliance church asked the Metropolitan District for help. “They were planting a daughter church,” says Terpstra, “and had not done it before.” After meeting with district consultants, the mother church decided the daughter church should be an Alliance church, and the unique partnership is bearing fruit.
“It seems like a week doesn’t go by without another opportunity washing up to our door to plant another church,” says Terpstra. “The only explanation that can be given for what is happening is that God has opened the floodgates.”