Prospective church starters gather at the fourth annual New Church Starts Boot Camp in Waco, Texas

ATLANTA – Victor Oke has dreams of starting an African church community in Takoma Park, Md., and after attending the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s annual New Church Starts Boot Camp, he better knows how.

Oke was one of 36 prospective church starters who attended the boot camp July 29-Aug. 3 at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary in Waco, Texas. The Fellowship co-sponsored the fourth annual boot camp with American Baptist Churches USA and Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT). The event offers opportunities for networking, learning about practical resources and assessing ministerial gifts and calling.

"It’s an opportunity to assess prospective church starters … and prepare new church starters to start new congregations," said Phil Hester, the Fellowship’s church starts specialist.

Attendees heard from a wide variety of speakers including Charles Wade, BGCT executive director; Tom Johnson, ABCUSA’s new church planting coordinator; Charles Higgs, BGCT director of Western Heritage Ministries; Truett professors; specialists in Hispanic church starting; and several coordinators of state/regional CBF organizations.

"The presenters came with words genuinely from their heart, and they were able to share from their experience," said Oke, who currently serves as associate pastor at Luther Rice Baptist Church in Silver Springs, Md.

Oke came to the event hoping to learn from other church starters, and he left the event with some new ideas about how effectively to start a church.

"I first kept thinking about finding the right space for my church, but now I will go home and begin concentrating not on space first, but on small groups," he said. "I am energized. I am looking for an open door to follow God’s will."

This year’s boot camp was made possible through a generous donation from the Cecil B. Day Foundation. BGCT, one of this year’s event co-sponsors, has been one of the Fellowship’s largest, consistent partners in church starting over the last seven years, Hester said.

This was the fourth year the Fellowship has offered the camp, with previous events held at other CBF partner theological schools – Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and Gardner-Webb University’s M. Christopher White Divinity School.

"It’s also an opportunity to deepen and strengthen our ties with our partner seminaries and encourage them in a development of a curriculum related to missions and new congregation formation," Hester said.

Currently, the Fellowship has helped start more than 100 churches in 21 states.

For more on New Church Starts, visit www.thefellowship.info/involved/network/ChurchStarts.

CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.