The Process

The process of starting a church is important to the long term health of the church. The strategic plan is made up of three stages and many mileposts. The three stages are: Laying the foundation, building the walls, and officially launching the church.

Laying the Foundation

o    Planting Team Recruited

o    Partner churches identified and confirmed

o    Prayer Team Developed

o    Demographic study completed

o    Church Governance issues developed

Building the Walls

o    Prayer Walk in Community

o    Bible Studies Begun

o    Intentional Evangelism

o    Core Group Training

o    Meeting Location secured and renovated

o    Equipment Purchased

o    Strategic Advertisement

o    Leadership Training

The Launch

o    Mass Marketing

o    Three Pre-Launch Services

o    First Baptism planned

o    New Members class

o    Additional Small Groups started

The Need

There are many ways that you can get involved, but the following are four key areas that we are looking for as we prepare to start this new work:

1.    Prayer partners to pray for the area, ministry leaders and core group of Bridgeway Community Church.  We will send out monthly emails of how you can pray specifically for our church and community. 

2.    Mission teams to help with community outreach and building renovation. This will also be included in the monthly email.

3.    SWAT teams will help in the Summer and Fall of 2008. Swat Teams are Strategic Willing And Temporary.  These volunteers will help for a short term basis (1-3 months) in areas such as Children’s Ministry, Music, Greeters, café, etc.

4.    Financial partners are essential to begin a new work. Church planting is expensive, but we expect the need for outside investment to diminish over the first three years. Please ask God if He wants you to partner with us financially for His work on Northeast Pennsylvania.

Why Dickson City, Pennsylvania

The population of Pennsylvania is 12.5 million people. There are 9.1 million people in the state that have not been evangelized. 31 counties in the eastern part of the state have 4 million people with 2.9 million people who have not been evangelized. In our target area alone there are hundreds of thousands of people who do not attend church. It is our desire to start a church that will start multiple churches in Pennsylvania to give people the opportunity to hear the Good News that Jesus Christ died for their sins and wants to give them the free gift of Salvation. Dickson City is located in the Northeast part of the state just North of Scranton.

Our Desire

In the Fall of 2006 God began to create a desire in our hearts to start a church in Northeast Pennsylvania.  I had just completed a MBA and we were excited about our life in Lynchburg, VA as well as the possible opportunities that lay ahead.  As God continued to speak to us it became very clear that He was taking us into the incredible adventure of starting a church. As we continued to pray, God began to speak to us in significant ways about the church.  Matthew 22:37-39 says, “Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” We understand that God wants to connect people with Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ.  We also realize that God uses people to connect with others to share the Good News and build up other Christ followers.  This is why we developed the mission statement “Connecting People with God and Others”. It is our strong desire to create environments where people have the opportunity to learn how they can connect with God and others.  We feel that this will help build God’s Church.