This July, Corey Pelton hosted Rural Church Development’s first Small Town Pastor’s Retreat for pastors who are ministering in small towns and rural settings.

“A good coach is trained to come alongside rather than tell you how to do things. Ministry is demanding and exhausting, but a good coach..."

The results were sobering: Five percent of PCA churches baptized five or more adults in a calendar year. (David calls these the 5% percent churches.) One percent have baptized five or more adults consistently year after year. However, David sees reason to hope.

“Making podcasts gives me structure for my own learning. Kind of selfishly, they force me to ask questions and listen.”

This year, the Tennessee Valley Presbytery’s MNA Committee welcomes four new members: Jason Coffey, Benjie Slaton, Seth Hammond, and Shawn Slate.

At the October 2023 gathering of the Tennessee Valley Presbytery Church Planting Network, Tony discussed the role cultural understanding plays in spreading the gospel and growing healthy churches. He said, “Too often, we’re giving the life-giving water of Christ to people in cultural cups that are hard to understand and embrace instead of doing the hard work of understanding others’ cultural bowls.”

Seth Hammond, lead pastor at Christ Covenant PCA in Knoxville, is leading a group of men through NXTGEN Pastor’s cohort model as part of the church’s efforts to hire a church planter in residence. Still in an early phase, this “church planting residency” is creating a leadership pipeline of church planters but also missionaries and worship leaders.

As to why the emotional and spiritual well-being of women matters to the body of believers as a whole, Mary Lu explains, “It’s monumental because of the role she plays as the wife to her husband and as an example to other women watching her. If the wife goes down, the church goes down.”

While it’s easy to find checklists of what makes a good church planter and step-by-step guides of how to be a better church planter, Jim spoke to the network about the river running beneath an individual’s drive and actions.

Because of faithful donors like you, our presbytery is able to support and equip our pastors for long-term health in ministry.

In his ministry to the rural areas and small towns of North Georgia, Corey Pelton has practiced learning about local culture–the beautiful parts, the long-held beliefs, and the attitudes that make ministry difficult.

In 2014, across all evangelical denominations in America, 4,000 churches were planted while 3,700 churches closed. In 2019, 3,000 churches were planted while 4,500 closed. Chris says, “It doesn’t do us any good to be planting churches if we’re closing so many each year.”

"I knew I needed to just preach the Bible, because people didn’t want to read and discuss other books about the Bible - they wanted..."

This June, Tyler Majors became Lakeway Presbyterian’s first pastoral intern. The Morristown, TN church is led by planting pastor Chris Talley, and Tyler has joined Chris in the effort to build community and shepherd the flock.

This month marks two years that Christ Church in Powell, TN, has been meeting for Sunday morning worship. The plant was started by Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN because the session and the associate pastor, John Blevins, sensed a call to reach the unchurched and dechurched in Knox County through a church plant.

For those of you who have been following along with the developments at Mosaic Fellowship, you’ll recall that Corby Shields is the new planting pastor. Corby describes the call as “initially a magnetic pull without clear articulation of why or what exactly the Lord was up to.”

We are thankful to the Lord and excited to announce that Corby Shields has agreed to serve as church planting pastor for Mosaic.

"When my wife, Kim, and I were searching for a church, some neighbors invited us to Grace Presbyterian Church, sharing that, while small in number, the congregation was extremely welcoming and the pastor shared the word of God in a wonderfully meaningful way."

We hope that these become times of rest from regular routines that can become wearisome, connection through fellowship with others in ministry, enrichment through teaching and discussion, and spiritual support through prayer together.

Through Corey Pelton’s Rural Church Development work, he’s had the opportunity to help a gathering of believers form in Ellijay, GA. Currently known as Cartecay Gathering, this church plant...