BENICIA – “Basically, I was born in the church and grew up in the church,” Howard Burkhart says. “The pastor kept talking about people being lost and not having Jesus. When I was about seven, I realized I didn’t have Jesus, so, on my own I prayed to receive Christ as my Savior. I was baptized shortly thereafter.”

Howard is a language church starting strategist with the California Southern Baptist Convention (CSBC) Church Starting Group. His ministry includes planting churches among often-overlooked language groups, working with the deaf and hearing impaired, and coordinating “Basic Training for Church Planters.”  

“I was going to college and the church I attended started a deaf ministry, so I started to learn sign language,” Howard recalled. “I went to seminary and found out about the huge need for missionaries for the deaf.” While in seminary, Howard married his church’s sign language teacher, Tina.

The combination of two experiences led Howard as a young college student to recognize that God was calling him to be a missionary: learning sign language and going to Israel as an International Mission Board (IMB) summer missionary. The IMB assigned Howard to a missionary compound where they ran weeklong day camps for kids. He spent his time there as a camp counselor and lifeguard. The camps attracted Arabic-speaking children and children whose parents worked at various international embassies in the area.

“As a summer missionary in Israel, I was exposed to many different cultures in an area where I was no longer in the dominant culture. I was very fortunate to be able to see that,” Howard recalled. “The first day of camp, we registered children who lived in Nazareth and in Cana. I thought that was way cool! 

“I fully enjoyed the cross-cultural aspect of things, too, which I had not done a lot of before,” he continued. “I found out that I was comfortable doing that moreso than most of my peers.” 

Howard attended the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, completing a degree in marketing and business administration. In 1984, after graduating from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with a master of divinity degree, Howard accepted a position with CSBC and he and Tina headed for California.

While serving California Southern Baptists statewide, the Burkharts currently live in Benicia, in a home built in the 1800s. Howard is seeking to plant churches for the smaller people groups of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area such as Mongolians and Ethiopian-Eritreans. He is currently working with two of the area’s Romanian churches.

“It’s a lot of fun to watch a church planter start the process and walk along with that planter until that church is doing well. That’s a lot of fun, and very rewarding!” Howard exclaimed.

“One of the challenges to my work is finding church planters,” he continued. “If we had a dozen church planters tomorrow, we could start a dozen churches. Another challenge is finding partnering churches to come alongside a church planter on various levels of engagement.”

He is excited to be teaming with CSBC church starting strategists Linda Bergquist and Andrew Chan on new projects in the Bay Area. Howard is assisting Linda as she leads a new work in the revitalization project of Jack London Square in Oakland. Andrew Chan and Howard are working in Oakland’s Chinatown, which is a fascinating slice of authentic Chinese urban culture.

Howard has helped start Romanian, Indonesian, Brazilian and Hispanic churches. He worked with a Japanese congregation for a short while, and taught seminary classes for the deaf for 15 years as part of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary’s diploma program.

Howard and Tina have two children, Nathan, age 19, and Victoria, age 16. Tina has master’s degrees in deaf education and religious education.

Howard’s message to California Southern Baptists:
“Church planting is fun! A healthy church is also a reproducible church. If a church is not reproducing, it is not healthy. Being involved as a partnering church in church planting adds to a sense of purpose for a partnering church.

“Involvement gives people in the partnering church, who are spiritually gifted in certain areas, an outlet for ministry that they might not have in their own church. People in the partnering church get fresh ideas about being relevant in their own community. Certainly, the planting church benefits by having the help of a partnering church. I see it as a win/win/win situation.

“Come partner with us and take a mission trip and experience church planting in the Bay Area.”

Howard’s prayer requests:

• Pray for Howard and Tina’s daughter, Victoria, who has many health needs and has been housebound for more than four years.
• Pray that God will raise up church planters for the San Francisco-Oakland region.
• Pray that the Lord of the Harvest (Luke 10:2) will answer the prayers of those who are intentionally missional and praying for harvest hands every morning at 10:02. Set your alarms and join them.
• Pray that God will open doors to reach smaller people-groups such as Mongolians, Ethiopian-Eritreans, and those speaking little-known Chinese dialects.
• Pray that God will open doors to new works in the revitalization project of Jack London Square in Oakland and in its neighboring community of Chinatown.
• Pray for PowerPlant 2009 – that God will prepare the planters and the soil for the new churches, and that youth groups will come and work for a week. (http://powerplant.studentz.com)
• Pray for generous giving to the California Mission Offering and the Cooperative Program.

Howard’s praises:

• Praise God for the great work He is doing in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area and throughout California.
• Praise God for the church planting partnerships He is developing in the Bay Area.
• Praise God for the mission trips people are making to help reach people for Christ in the Bay Area.
• Praise God for the six teams of 75 people who participated in PowerPlant 2007 that helped six church planters reach out to local businesses and individuals in their target neighborhoods.
• Praise God for those who participate in the statewide Basic Training for Church Planters workshops.

Did you know?
Basic Training for Church Planters is an intensive 18-hour workshop that walks teams through the process of church planting. Ninety-eight church planting teams went through the workshops held in 2007.

During the first half of 2008, two training sessions were held in Sacramento – one in English and one in Spanish. Other workshops included an English Basic Training in Inglewood, Korean Basic Training in San Leandro and Spanish Basic Training in Southern California.

Contact Howard for more information.

Howard’s contact information:
Howard Burkhart
229 West G St
Benicia California 94510
707-746-8782
htburkhart@earthlink.net