The Gospel in Their Language
Before you can effectively plant the gospel in a new community, you must love your community enough to understand it. In our eagerness to start a much-needed church, it is tempting to rush into a new area with preconceived notions and pre-packaged strategies, assuming what worked elsewhere will work here.
We often try to “cut and paste” ministry models that worked for us in the past, assuming they will automatically thrive in our new context. But treating a unique community like a generic target is usually a recipe for irrelevance. Effective ministry isn’t imported; it’s grown locally. This requires deep, intentional contextualization—a willingness to slow down and listen before we speak.
We see this modeled perfectly by the Apostle Paul in Acts 17. When he arrived in Athens, a city renowned for its intellect and saturated with idols, his spirit was grieved by what he saw. Yet, his reaction wasn’t frantic condemnation. He didn’t immediately jump on a soapbox with a generic, one-size-fits-all sermon. Instead, scripture tells us he walked around, carefully observing their objects of worship.
Paul became a humble student of the city. He didn’t just see their statues; he studied their values, their fears, and their deeply rooted longings. He listened to their debates and even familiarized himself with their poets. He waited long enough to identify the “unknown god” they were yearning for. When he finally spoke at the Areopagus, he didn’t compromise the gospel, but translated it using their cultural language to build a bridge to Jesus Christ, rather than erecting an unnecessary barrier.
If Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, took the time to deeply study a pagan culture before engaging it, how much more should we? To reach your community effectively, you need to know its unique heartbeat, its hidden pains, and its celebrated assets. You must love the context before you try to change it, because listening is an act of love. That’s why in this month’s newsletter we’re pointing you to resources to help you becoming a student of your city. Enjoy!
-Patrick Bradley, Director of Operations
February 2026 – Content
- Numbers Don’t Lie
- Are You Building Bridges or Barriers?
- A Strategy for Meeting Influencers
- Faithful Steps
Numbers Don’t Lie
You can’t fully love a community you don’t truly know. While walking the streets and meeting people is indispensable, you also need hard data to understand who actually lives there. Are you basing your launch strategy on anecdotal evidence or facts? What are the real demographics regarding things like age, income, family structures, and ethnicity in your target area?
Passion for Planting wants to equip you with the objective data you need to better understand who calls your community home. That’s why we offer free Demographic Reports for your specific target area. This isn’t just census data; it’s a window into the lives of the people God has called you to serve. Stop guessing and start strategizing with real numbers. Request your free report today and take the first step toward truly understanding the landscape of your community.
Are You Building Bridges or Barriers?
As a church planter, you live in the high-stakes tension between the timeless truths of Scripture and the shifting cultural landscape of your new community. You know the gospel has the power to save, but the critical question is: are your neighbors actually hearing it? Or are they getting hung up on unnecessary cultural barriers you didn’t even realize you were erecting?
True contextualization isn’t about watering down the hard truths of the Bible to make them palatable; it is the missionary discipline of translation to make them understandable. In Contextualization in the Late-Modern West, Michael Keller defines the task as “translating the timeless message of the gospel into the timely language of a particular culture, without over- or under-adapting the message.”
If you want to ensure you are addressing the specific idols and deepest longings of your community with the clarity of the cross, rather than just imposing your own cultural preferences, read this article. It will help you proclaim that gospel in a way that is both faithful to God and intelligible to your neighbors.
A Strategy for Meeting Influencers
Every church planter has good intentions of being out in the community, but schedules fill up quickly, and without a plan, networking gets choked out by other priorities. To help you move from intention to strategic action, we’ve developed the Community Networking Strategy Template.
This tool will challenge you to meet more community leaders and influencers, helping you lay foundations for ongoing relationships. The template encourages you to approach every meeting with the ‘posture of a student’, genuinely seeking to learn about your community’s strengths and real needs. More than that, it helps you set a realistic pace, ensuring you don’t just network before launch, but continue meeting leaders after Launch Sunday as well. Download the Community Networking Strategy Template to organize how you will build bridges with key leaders in your area.
Faithful Steps
Several years ago, Jacob McKlarney sensed that God was calling him to plant a church. However, after much prayer he sensed that God wasn’t calling him to start a church, but to spark a movement of new churches along the Interstate 81 corridor in Southwest Virginia.
Together with his wife Haileah, Jacob started to dream and pray about what that meant and what it would take to start a movement that multiplied disciples and churches in his region. As he began to dream, he realized he would need help and support to clarify his vision, and even more help to turn this vision into reality. That’s when he connected with us.
To help him prepare to plant a reproducing church, Jacob participated in our Distance Residency Cohort last year. This intense season of training helped him refine the church’s strategy for equipping qualified leaders and launching decentralized house churches. God has been faithful to their preparation! We are thrilled to report that Blacksburg Church just launched their first two house churches last month along with their weekly Sunday morning worship gatherings. The movement is just getting started, but we’re thrilled to hear how it’s gaining momentum. Read the full story on how their faithful steps are already bearing fruit.