For many PCA pastors, they know how to preach the gospel and minister to people, but they haven’t been taught things like how to build a leadership pipeline, how to establish a strategic vision, or practical church finance skills.

The joyous celebration was, in the words of planting pastor Chris Talley, a remembrance of God’s faithfulness. “It wasn’t to celebrate ourselves but to worship Jesus and tell the story of what He’s done among ordinary people.”

"Events like this which seek to care for and keep church planters cared for and on mission is one of the reasons we chose to be a part of this movement.”

The hope is that over time, we’ll see more church planters and pastors identified, equipped, trained, and supported and ready to reach the lost and renew communities.

Chris is our first learning hub coordinator and the newest team member of the Tennessee Valley Presbytery Church Planting Network.

As Lakeway Presbyterian Church in Morristown, TN, prepares to particularize next year, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the Lord’s faithfulness to this church plant over the last six years.

It’s been several years since we’ve had the pleasure of announcing a new church plant in the Tennessee Valley Presbytery, but this fall, we’re delighted to announce that Rob Herron and his wife, Mary Lee, are planting Mercy Presbyterian Church.

The Nashville Presbytery’s desire to plant churches has been growing for a while, and this year, that momentum began to be channeled intentionally through a partnership with the Tennessee Valley Presbytery.

Pastor Alton Hardy and Tristen Bryant of Urban Hope Community Church and Manifold Vision joined Tennessee Valley Presbytery’s church planters to share about their ministry in Fairfield, AL. As Alton said, the answer to each community’s problems is: “You must preach the gospel. Most of the churches in Fairfield are not even remotely preaching the gospel.”

Sometimes, the start of a plant comes after years of prayer and preparation, but other times, God brings the right pieces together much more quickly.

July was a busy month for Rural Church Development, first hosting a tent revival and then the annual small town pastor’s retreat.

There are more counties in the Tennessee Valley Presbytery that don’t have a PCA church than those that do. Seventeen of TVP’s counties do not have a PCA church, while 15 do. This is something we’re working to change through church planting.

Our first Church Planting Network gathering of 2025 featured two guests who spoke on two aspects of preaching. The goal of the gathering was that our church planters would be equipped to grow in their preaching practices.

Now, just about two years after the Shields family came to the church, Highland Park celebrated its particularization.

Redeemer Athens started in 2022, and in its second full year (2023), the congregation found a physical home in the form of their own building. Along with this blessing, the church body continues to experience spiritual growth and evangelism.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen the challenges associated with identifying, recruiting, and equipping future church planters, so we want to address some deepset issues in hopes of building leaders for the future. Our five-year planning process considered...

Woodlands Educational Initiative shows value and care for created things that are valued in Native culture while redirecting worship to the God of these created things. Greg says, “It’s a great outreach and a great way to show indigenous people that God doesn’t just like you; He loves you, and He made you the way that you are.”

“Church planting is like having a baby, and church revitalization is like adopting a teenager. With teenagers, you don’t have to potty train, teach them to walk, or teach them to read, but they have already been shaped, and not always in positive ways.”

Karen Ellis is a thoughtful, earnest voice in global conversations about living in a Christ-like manner when facing suffering, whether big (think being imprisoned or killed for your faith) or small (think difficulties at your job, desiring to be married while in a long season of singleness, or exhaustion in the midst of busyness).

Jim and Michael commissioned Dr. Ryan Burge (Baptist pastor and political science professor at Eastern Illinois University) to study and analyze what they’ve dubbed “the great dechurching.” They found that dechurching wasn’t limited to specific sociological categories or denominations. Instead, it’s wide-reaching.

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...

Two churches in the TVP church planting initiative - one that has particularized and one that is still in the planting stage - are facing leadership transitions due to the pastors’ need to step away from ministry for the time being.

According to an article published by Barna Group a little over a year ago, “Even amidst the pandemic, church planting remains a priority for many churches. Half of pastors (53%) agree strongly that their church is committed to starting new churches and planting new campuses.”

After several years of outreach, events, and Bible studies, Woodlands Gathering officially launched Sunday morning worship on November 27, 2022. During this first service, the church also held their first baptism.

Some highlights from 2022 include the particularization of Grace + Peace, 29 known conversions, one full year of the Rural Church Development initiative, and the first year of Redeemer Athens.

“What a joy it has been to first visit and then become a member at Grace Presbyterian Church. I have become immersed in the Word of God and Jesus Christ through this experience, growing in faith literally every day."

In less than a year since Curt Stapleton and his family moved to Athens, TN, Redeemer Athens reached the point of holding Sunday morning worship. “I’ve been speaking to students through Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) at the local high school and Young Life College at Tennessee Wesleyan. I’ve met in the same restaurants and talked with many people within our sphere of influence.”

On August 21, 2022, Grace+Peace celebrated their particularization service. It was clear that God had raised up the right men at the right time to lead Grace+Peace and serve the community, so the church was ready to particularize.

The first time Benjie Slaton, pastor of Grace+Peace, visited Ooltewah in 2018, he wanted to figure out just what the community of Ooltewah was. “I was coming from San Antonio, and all of my ministry experience had been in Texas."

As we continue to work toward planting twenty churches in ten years that both reach the lost and see communities renewed through the power of the gospel, I couldn’t be happier to have announced Travis Vaughn as our new executive director and now Matthew Bryant as the new fundraiser for this work.

In the last six months, Corey Pelton has been hard at work building connections in the rural areas of north Georgia, western North Carolina, and east Tennessee. His work will help develop churches, nourish pastors, and build community in areas that are often passed over when it comes to church planting efforts.