by Norm Miller

FRESNO - On 10-10-10 at 10 a.m., the Bay Area church planting strategy team will kick off a series of church starting events across California called, appropriately, "10-10-10."

"We're praying for preview services, vision tours, prayer-walks, community service and outreach events, baptism services, new church 'baby showers' and more," said Linda Bergquist, California Southern Baptist Convention church planting strategist.

"We would like to see both local and national teams descend on the Bay Area that day to help make this a truly once-in-a-century church planting experience," she added, noting October 10, 2010 will never come again.

Not limited to the Bay Area, the 10-10-10 emphasis is a statewide project.
"We're hoping that many new churches will be started, and it looks like that will really happen all over California," Bergquist said.

For about four years, hundreds of people in the Bay Area have been praying that the Lord's words would become reality, as noted in Luke 10:2: "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field."

Before harvest there's planting. Before planting, there's plowing. Bergquist believes prayer-walking is plowing. That's why it's one of the 10-10-10 activities.

"Prayer-walking is a missional posture because it places us in spiritual proximity to the people we're praying to reach," she said. Such proximity "helps us see and care more deeply."

"Prayer, in general, is hugely important to church planting," Bergquist added, citing Psalm 127:1: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." She believes the same is true for all biblical ministry.

"I keep asking God that every ounce of energy we put into this project will be counted as 'fervent, effectual prayer,'" which God's Word promises will have results.

Equating prayer-walking with spiritual warfare, Bergquist said "it is not to be taken lightly. Prayer-walking is one way to bring  light and life to the darkness."

Akin to prayer-walks are vision tours, where members of churches interested in church planting tour an area where a new church is needed. Vision tours also facilitate partnerships between established churches and newly planted ones. Such relationships foster synergy as the more established church aids the newer one through prayer and financial support, and by sending ministry and mission teams, Bergquist explained.

Another way to reach a community and promote church planting is through community service and outreach events, which are part of the 10-10-10 emphasis.

"We're trying to start churches based on four models," Bergquist noted, the latter of which is fashioned after community service and outreach. "The first is the Antioch priority, which is starting strong, strategically located, reproducing churches. Second is our Athens priority, and that's planting churches among the least reached people groups. Third is our Acts 2 priority. That's starting small, reproducing indigenous churches that are usually bivocationally led.

"Finally, our Amos strategy is aimed at starting churches around ministries of justice and community service," Bergquist said.

The Amos churches naturally are more oriented around community service than any of the others, she explained. In some community outreach and service situations, church planting is "not so much a goal as it is an outcome. The gospel planted in people's lives naturally produces disciples, and the natural outcome of this disciple-making is new communities of faith, or churches."
Public baptisms also are on the docket for 10-10-10.

"Since many new churches do not meet in traditional church buildings, it's common for them to baptize outdoors in public spaces, which further increases the public dimension of the new Christian's testimony," said Bergquist, who encouraged baptismal candidates "to invite their friends and family, which gives an opportunity to profess their faith in front of others who need Christ."

Another activity planned for 10-10-10 is new church "baby showers." Newly planted churches need nurturing, and church planters need others who care about the new "baby church" like they do, Bergquist said.

"New church baby showers are family times. Yes, they are great ways to provide for the needs of new churches; but even more, they are times of prayer, encouragement and blessing," Bergquist said. "Sometimes churches that have never been involved in church planting decide to host a baby shower. They become caught up in the joy of the new church, and from there begin finding ways to partner with new churches."

So what motivates Bergquist and her team?

"Church planting missionaries are an odd breed," Bergquist confessed. "We see churches in our sleep, plant churches in our dreams, and see new churches everywhere we go. It's just how we're wired by God."

Bergquist and her team pray that California Southern Baptists will mark 10-10-10 on their calendars as a day of prayer for church planting, and a day of putting feet to those prayers by joining statewide planting efforts.

For more information about personal or church involvement in 10-10-10, e-mail Linda Bergquist.