SEEDS Church Planting Conference Inspires Many

Story by Andre Hastick

Recently more than 180 pastors and church members from approximately 30 churches in the Chesapeake Conference gathered together at the Doubletree Hotel (Md.) for SEEDS, a church planting conference dedicated to giving local ministry leaders the tools they need to church-plant in communities.

“It is exciting to see the strong and growing interest in church planting,” says Rick Remmers, president of the Chesapeake Conference. “This SEEDS conference was an informative and inspiring introduction to starting new churches, and provided some helpful training for many already on the journey.”

Attendees participated in sessions covering the importance of praying for new church plants, recruiting core team members and biblical reasons for starting new churches. At the conclusion, more than 110 people committed to becoming church plant leaders.

“It was a great conference. It was spiritual, factual and relational,” says Dale Carpenter, a volunteer lay pastor at the Providence church in Elkton, Md.

On that same weekend, SEEDS for Spanish-speaking churches brought more than 150 pastors and members together to also learn how to best reach their communities.

“I was inspired profoundly to see the members seeing the necessity to plant more churches,” says Jenner Becerra, the pastor of the Dundalk, Baltimore Centro, Glen Burnie and Dundalk II Spanish churches, Church planter Boyan Levterov leads a SEEDS session. all located in Maryland.