DESTINATION NORTH AMERICA

by Larry Powell, General Director, Home Missions Department

With prayerful hearts and a great desire for soul winning and church planting, we set our eyes on fields that are white with harvest. The Home Missions Department endeavors to reach the lost across the nation with a special focus on the Mid-Atlantic and Rocky Mountain regions.

Mid-Atlantic Mission

Forty-six million people, one out of every six Americans, live in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. Thirty-nine cities across this region have more than 50,000 in population. The Mid-Atlantic area has grown by one million people in four years and is expected to increase by more than a million within the next four years. 

Former home missionaries, Tommy and Pam Jones, established a thriving work in Pittsburgh. That’s a beginning. We are praying that God will raise up teams to go into cities like Greensburg, Williamsport, and Scranton, Pennsylvania. Our research confirms that counties in outlying areas around Baltimore, Hagertown, Frederick and Annapolis, Maryland are growing faster than the cities themselves. The population is shifting to the outer edges of Wilmington, Dover, and Georgetown, Delaware. The need is tremendous. The call is clear. Will you go?

Rocky Mountain Region

During the last few years, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho ranked as the third, fourth, and fifth fastest growing states in the nation. They will gain another 665,000 residents in four years. Several million people live in the area from Colorado Springs north along Interstate 25, through Denver into Ft. Collins, (135 miles). Castle Rock, Brighton, Longmont, and Wellington, Colorado are experiencing tremendous growth. The front-range is becoming home to 177 new people each day. Currently, we have a foothold in Colorado with four mission churches and one established church. Colorado has 26 cities with more than 50,000 people in them. Now is the time to plant churches in this quickly expanding Rocky Mountain region.

A great salt lake soon comes into view when traveling west from Ft. Collins, Colorado across the Rocky Mountains. Multitudes are held in spiritual darkness in the desert of Utah, especially the area surrounding Greater Salt Lake City. Free Will Baptists have a base there in the “mouth of the lion.” Bill and Kay Phillips planted our first Free Will Baptist church in Salt Lake City. Tim and Jessica Lewis are digging out a work in nearby Ogden. Randy and LeAnn Ledbetter and Scott and Staci Warren are preparing to launch a new mission in Northern Salt Lake City. There are numerous cities with little or no gospel outreach from West Jordan north through Salt Lake City and up to Logan.

Further west across the Rockies is Idaho. Free Will Baptists have six churches in Idaho where a great surge in growth is expected within the next few years. The Macedonian call is clear. “Come over and help us!”

If our Lord Jesus impresses your heart to go to a Mid-Atlantic mission or the Rocky Mountain region, please call today. Leave the Bible belt and head for one of more than 100 cities with no Free Will Baptist church. For the exciting, cutting edge experience of your life, plant a new church in North America.