by Amanda Phifer

BAY AREA - A power plant is a facility that produces electrical power through some mechanical or chemical means.

Or it could be a gaggle of teenagers distributing free potted plants to businesses on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, asking the cashiers if they'd like prayer - a simple act to support not a transformer, but a transformation.

Other transformative acts: free car washes, Vacation Bible Schools, puppet shows in the park, door-to-door surveys, food distribution to the homeless, ethnographic research, daily worship and teaching on church planting. Some activities were intended to transform the community through outreach; some were intended to transform the 75 students who'd traveled from as near as Roseville and as far away as Raleigh, NC to work.

All of these were part of a PowerPlant "surge," a week of outreach efforts hosted by churches in Pleasanton, Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro.

PowerPlant is an offshoot of World Changers, in which middle and high school students participate in various construction-focused mission projects throughout the United States and abroad. A Power-Plant week, though, as its name implies, focuses on helping new church starts with outreach, evangelism and ministry, all the while exposing youth to the world of church planting. Both are administered through the North American Mission Board.

PowerPlant was held June 7-13 in Arizona, July 5-11 in San Diego, and July 12-18 in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was the first PowerPlant for San Diego and the Bay Area, but both plan to host another next summer.

"It's great to have these kids here," said David Lozada, pastor of the new Iglesia Cristiana Emanuel in San Leandro, gesturing toward youth helping with Vacation Bible School. "I don't think our church would be able to pull off Vacation Bible School alone."

Six students from First Southern Baptist Church in Delhi and 10 more from SonRise Community Church in Scottsdale, AZ were on hand to help with music, recreation, arts and crafts, and teaching at the year-old church.

Just up the road at Urban Grace Community Church, which meets in the Telegraph Baptist Center at the intersection of Oakland and Berkeley, youth from Bay Leaf Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC spent the week distributing potted plants to businesses, performing puppet plays in parks, washing cars and pitching in wherever pastor Gary Lee pointed them.

Justin Buchanan, youth pastor from Bay Leaf, enjoyed seeing his students being used by God.

"One of (them), Nathan Honaker, was inviting a woman to the free car wash," Buchanan relayed. "In the course of the conversation, she shared how she had been married to a Jehovah's Witness but was now looking for 'inner peace.'
"Immediately Nathan asked this woman, 'May I share with you how I have inner peace?' She agreed.

"In that moment, Nathan was able to share the peace that can only come by having a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. God gave Nathan the words to speak and the ability to turn that conversation to a conversation about biblical Truth. Time and again this happened."

Buchanan has now participated in five PowerPlant weeks.

"There are other summer mission trips that are more usual or common for student ministries to be engaged in," he said. "But with PowerPlant, you know who is responsible for the continual outreach and follow-up - the church plant and church planter."

Four churches from California worked at the Bay Area PowerPlant: First Southern, Delhi; First Southern, Roseville; North Hills Baptist, Vallejo, which hosted the students and their leaders for the week; and First Baptist, Mt. Shasta.

Just over 90 youth and leaders participated in the San Diego Power-Plant: from Bethel Baptist Church, Escondido; Vision Church of Southern California, L.A.; Northern Hills Community, Phoenix; and First Baptist, Houston. Fellowship of San Diego at First Southern Baptist hosted the teams.

"It was a really good whirlwind week," said Dan Cookson, California Southern Baptist Convention new church starting strategist in the San Diego area. "The concert of prayer on Monday night had a huge impact on the kids. Bethel Church wants to help us recruit when we do this again next year."

Youth in San Diego helped six different church plants: 7 San Diego and San Miguel Community, Chula Vista; Ethos Community and Cloudbreak Church, San Diego; Barabbas Road Baptist, La Jolla; and Church at the Beach, Mission Beach.

Youth helped with sports camps, surveys, Vacation Bible Schools, water distribution, gift basket distribution, and even some video-shooting for a documentary about the homeless and poor of San Diego.

The group from Mt. Shasta, working in the Bay Area, was exposed to the variety of ministries involved in urban church planting, according to Linda Bergquist, CSBC new church starting strategist.

"They visited The Journey, a new start in the city, in the morning. Then they went to the Page Street Center (in San Francisco) and passed out sandwiches and flyers to the homeless and poor people, inviting them to a new church started at the center. Then they did ethnographic research at Jack London Square in Oakland, and passed out postcards promoting the World Impact Center, which is led by a Southern Baptist Chinese pastor."

Mornings began with worship and teaching at North Hills in Vallejo, led by a team of college students serving as summer missionaries through NAMB, as well as two local church planters. After lunch the students went out in smaller teams to work with church plants, which ranged from not-yet-launched to one year old.

"PowerPlant is focused on sustainability," Bergquist explained. "It's not just about the week even for the youth - they become exposed to the possibilities and gifts of church planting, for the future and for the present at their current church."

"It's our first PowerPlant but it's been just great," said Stacey Ford, youth leader from SonRise. "We try to employ an Acts 1:8 strategy with our summer mission trips - something close to home, then elsewhere in the state, then out of state, then overseas."

On Telegraph Avenue, youth from North Carolina were exposed to the unique stew that is Berkeley: the smoke shop next door to Starbucks, the independent bookstore sharing a wall with a "vintage" clothing shop, the bearded veteran at his table on the sidewalk hawking free speech-themed wares, and a highly visible and forthright street ministry preaching the gospel, by turns ignored or heckled.

The youth, however, were undeterred. Shop after shop, block after block, they waltzed quietly but confidently through the door, approached the cashier and offered a free potted flower to beautify the store, and then offered prayer for any expressed need.

"I don't know that we're all that brave or anything," protested Spencer Warren, one of the youth. "I love doing this kind of work."

"And anyway, we're just doing what we came to do," added another youth, Garrett George, as though it were a matter of course for high school students to spend a week of their summer sharing Jesus on the other side of the country.

"It was overall a good week," agreed Howard Burkhart, CSBC new church starting strategist who worked with the groups in the Bay Area. "Not only did our church planters get some help, but several established churches helped out with the logistics of Power-Plant, and now they too have some experience being part of church planting."

So for two weeks at nearly-opposite ends of California, youth from around the country worked at a different kind of PowerPlant, generating not wattage, but Kingdom growth.