How many new churches have been planted among us since 2003?

A few months ago, Disciples Today Editor Roger Lamb requested Stephen Haberkorn, a volunteer editor for Disciples Today, to began researching this question. He then asked Kelcy Hahn, our volunteer editor for Disciples Today Info and editor of Mission Memo, to take the list that Steve and Roger had assembled and complete the most accurate listing of churches planted in our fellowship since 2003 for an article they were planning. This question is harder to answer than one might imagine. Below is the list of what we have found so far.

We need your help. If you can clarify which of any of the following are truly new plantings are invited to reply to this This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it address. Please identify yourself and your connection to the information.

There are 147 congregations for which we collected no membership data prior to 2004, but which have either reported membership in one or more years since then, or have been reported as 2007 church plantings by a church administrator.*

These 147 churches fall into two categories:

1) Existing churches that changed their organization. At least 34 are known to have existed prior to 2004 as a part of a larger congregation (see the notes below). These aren't church plantings per se, but are newly organized congregations.

2) New Church Plantings: We are confident that most of the other 113 churches listed below are new plantings because most were reported by church leaders and administrators. However, we want to be accurate in our reporting.

Please send further info to kelcy@missionmemo.org

Thank you for your help.

May God be glorified as we continue to plant and water and rely on him for the increase.