The North American Mission Board’s PowerPlant initiative – designed to expose students to church planting and evangelism – has announced it will conduct projects next summer in 19 cities nationwide, including the Greenville-Spartanburg area.
During the summer of 2009, PowerPlant connected 109 Southern Baptist churches with more than 100 church planters in one-week mission project settings involving more than 1,900 student participants.
Church youth groups – from two people to 200, from those who have finished sixth grade to college students – are eligible to participate in PowerPlant. PowerPlant is a prepackaged program designed to let students learn “hands-on” about church-planting principles and evangelism skills.
“We are excited to partner with great church plants in these cities,” said John W. Bailey, team leader for PowerPlant at NAMB. “I think we have a lot of options for youth ministers to choose from. We have some neat first-time cities like Los Angeles and Madison, Wis., in addition to cities we’ve been in for years, such as Nashville and Chicago.”
Other cities on the 2010 PowerPlant schedule are Port Arthur, Texas; Memphis, Tenn.; Savannah, Ga.; Indianapolis, Ind.; St. Louis, Mo.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Seattle, Wash.; Ottawa, Ontario (Canada); San Francisco Bay Area, Calif.; and Charleston, W.Va.
Next summer, PowerPlant projects will start on Monday and end on Saturday. Church youth groups will be teamed up with a church planter, and participants will minister to the community through a variety of assignments that could include sports camps, vacation Bible schools and servant evangelism projects.
In addition to hands-on missions involvement, participants will learn key principles of church planting in morning sessions, and will work with their church plants each afternoon. At the end of the day, youth groups will come together for worship. PowerPlant’s 2010 theme will be “Unhindered,” based on 2 Corinthians 5:14-15.
“We are ready and willing to partner with church youth leaders in mobilizing their students,” Bailey added. “I think our team can add value to their mission experiences through our relationships with church planters and strategists throughout North America.”
For more information or to register for 2010 PowerPlant, go to www.power-plant.net or call 1-800-462-8657, option 2. For a free PowerPlant DVD, e-mail powerplant@namb.net. – NAMB