Because of the unique nature of our expanding diocese, church planters often approach C4SO with a desire to plant churches outside our geographic footprint. In February, the C4SO leadership team devised a way to provide a home for such brand-new church plants that don’t naturally fit into a Regional Deanery.
For the first two years of the church plants’ lives, they will be organized in a Church Planting Deanery, led by the Rev. Dr. Brad Swope, C4SO’s Director of Church Planting. Brad will evaluate each church plant to see if there is geographic and/or relational affinity with a current deanery. If so, the church plant will begin within that deanery. If not, the church plant will begin with the Church Planting Deanery. All established church plants will remain with their current deanery.
“Because I am already in a coaching relationship with these church planters/church plants, it seems natural for us to form a Deanery so as to provide more extensive pastoral care for the clergy and more strategic planning for its churches,” Brad says.
After a church plant spends two years in the Church Planting Deanery, the goal is, as quickly as possible, to relate the church plants to a geographic deanery. Brad will begin to build those relationships before the two years conclude.
To date, the churches in the Church Planting Deanery are Christ the King in Brooklyn led by the Rev. Matt Brown, Trinity Anglican Church in Tampa led by Travis and Mickey Lowe, and a developing church plant led by Tanner and Kara Griffith in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“I am excited to lead this Deanery because planting a church is often an overwhelming, exhausting, and lonely experience,” Brad says. “By forming a Deanery, we want to close the distance with planters so they feel supported and resourced in the first two years of the plant.”
Learn more about church planting with C4SO.
To learn more about the Church Planting Deanery, contact Brad Swope.