Hello all!
We are in the throes of the Pentecost Offering. I have to say we are off to a great start.
We are just coming off the New Church Summit that happened in Nashville, TN. There were 45 people in attendance—while some joined us virtually, most were in person. The overall topic we were discussing was how to help empower regions to start fiscally resilient, sustainable new congregations. A lot of people came in to help us think through this issue. We are grateful to our General Minister and President Rev. Terri Hord Owens for coming and sharing some inspiring words with us. We also had some friends from the United Church of Christ participate and contribute their wisdom. The dean of the Disciples Divinity House and Institute at Vanderbilt Rev. Cherisna Jean-Marie gave the keynote address on how leadership development is helping new students be prepared for ministry in this day and age. Overall, we had wonderful conversations and a lot of data to sort through.
We are doing this because there’s a chance for us to receive a Lilly Grant. Our goal for this grant application is to create something that leverages New Church Ministry’s position within a financial general ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada to empower regions to start these new congregations. No other church-planting entity is situated like New Church Ministry, because most others are within their denomination’s Missions Ministry. Some of you might be thinking, “How will this help established congregations?” In this effort, we hope that what we develop for new congregations will ultimately help our established congregations. As I have said before, “We are all New Church,” and we need to have that mind-shift to keep moving forward in such times as these.
Thank you for the support you have given, and let’s keep working together because New Church work is WHOLE Church work.
-Rev. Dr. Jose Martinez, Minister of New Church Strategies
An excerpt of this blog post appeared in the May 2026 issue of the New Church Know-It-All.
