Starting Churches

For more information on Church Starting in Baltimore, download the Church Starting flyer.  

Check out this recent story in the Baltimore Sun about Embrace Baltimore and the new churches taking root in the Baltimore area. It features several excellent quotes from Joel Kurz, pastor of the Garden Community church, as well as several Embrace Baltimore staff.

The Church Starting Team has as its goal to establish and develop healthy churches that are launched for success (not survival), SBC in practice and principle, self-sustaining through evangelism, intentionally reproductive and culturally relevant. In order to reach this goal, Embrace Baltimore:

* Enlists prayer support networks to commit to pray for church launchers.
* Identifies sites for new churches.
* Equips church starters for ministry.
* Enlists partners to provide people, prayer and finances for the launching and development of healthy new churches.

Pray for these new churches in the Baltimore area:

The Garden Community
The Garden Community will begin the planting work full-time on July 1, 2008, as church planter Joel Kurz and his family move to the city. They will take on the challenge of ministering to an area that is largely disconnected from the church as a whole. In 2006, Pastor Kurz felt God call him to plant a church in Baltimore when he saw how detached the area was from church, and how open the people in that area were to change. The church focuses on reconnecting people with Christ by building a strong sense of community and belonging among its members. In the future, they want to strengthen and broaden their community by creating neighborhood-based cell groups that go out to the people who might not otherwise come in. For more information, click here.

Pray for The Garden Community:

* That relationships created during our time in the schools will continue to deepen, and that we will be able to care well for this school and her staff.

* For the teachers and staff of Eutaw Marshburn Elementary school as they prepare for the upcoming school year.

* For Axis, an eight week core development gathering that The Garden has been journeying through together.  Pray that our time together with continue to bond together our team as we continue to grow this community of faith.

* For wisdom and endurance as Joel and Jess look to raise their two girls while planting a church in the middle of the city.

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The Village Church
Everything from the name of the Village Church to its “eclectic, bohemian” style is designed to target the generation that Pastor Dan Hyun says is currently missing from the church in Baltimore. For several years, Pastor Hyun felt the call of God to plant a church that reached the generation of people between the ages of 20-40, many of whom are either unchurched or “dechurched.” Through taking the Gospel to people for the first time and “mopping up” bad misconceptions of Christ, the Village is breaking through to people in the area. For more information, click here.

Pray for The Village Church:

* Pray for Pastor Dan Hyun's family. Pray that newbord Debbie would be healthy and continue to be a relatively easy baby to manage. Pray for Dan’s wife, Judie, as she continues to recuperate and transitions into being a full-time mom; pray that she would thrive in that role. Pray for Dan to keep his priorities in order: 1) God, 2) Family, 3) Ministry. Especially with church starting, finding balance is a challenge, and Dan has been exhausted trying to do all that he does well.

* Pray for the church. Pray for greater growth and maturity as we experience many transitions. We recognize that to be successful in what God’s called us to will require many more workers who have a Kingdom, missional perspective toward life.  Pray that the Lord will lead those kinds of people to The Village, ideally those who are new to town or maybe people who have been genuinely praying about an opportunity like this -- not just bitter Christians who are tired of their current church.

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The Light Church
Grace Life Church was thrilled when their young adult group from the Maryland Institute College of Art ballooned from five members to 30, but everyone laughed when Pastor Roger Kim alluded that the small discipleship group they started could one day morph into a church plant. That was just the vision that God laid on his heart, however, and three years later, on October 7, 2007, The Light Church began its ministry to artists in the Baltimore area. In addition to its weekly meetings, the church holds discussion groups, knitting groups, and they are in the middle of building an art gallery/café that will spotlight local artists' works and hopefully draw them into the church. For more information, click here.

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The Gallery Church
The goal of the Gallery Church is to display the greatness of God to the world. Pastor Ellis Prince worked as a youth pastor in Georgia when he and his wife Ginger felt a strong call from God to plant a church in the Northeast. After much prayer, the Prince family moved from their home in Georgia to New York to work with the original Gallery Church before coming down to Baltimore. Their goal is to reclaim the reputation of Christ by displaying the pure truth of the Bible in the world, starting with their zip code. For more information, click here.  

Pray for Gallery Church Baltimore:

* On October 25 we are hosting a Fall Festival Block Party for an under-resourced community.  Pray that the 200 people we expect to show will be open to Good News of Jesus Christ.

* Please be in Prayer for Daryl and Susan as they are wrestling with whether or not they want to follow Christ.

* Pray for Nikki and Nathan, that they will soon trust and follow Jesus.

* For wisdom in all the details, from programs to conversations. Pray for God's favor and for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be clear in the message.

* Pray that the church will find several venues to worship in.

* Pray that the church starting team will live “with their armor on” to say and do things only in God's Will as they begin ministering to the community.