A couple of months ago, I attended the Texas District Church Planting Conference at Tapatio Springs, TX (beautiful resort in the Hill Country).  Hope Lutheran has, along with a number of other congregations in the District, been challenged to plant another congregation within the next 10 years.  The goal of the District is to plant 200 new congregations by 2017. 

Last month, the Board of Directors of Hope Lutheran Church approved the formation of a task force to explore the possibilities of Hope planting another congregation by 2017.  Where will it be?  What will it look like?  How will it be funded?  Where will they worship?  Who will be their pastor?  These are all questions to be answered.  We will not try to plant another congregation while our current capital campaign for phase 2a of campus expansion is underway.  But the task force will do a lot of homework, reconaissance, and preparation over the next three years so that, once construction of 2a is complete, we can move forward quickly.

There are many people who have in our area who have not yet heard the Gospel.  Planting a new congregation in an unserved or underserved area will be a wonderful way to plant the seeds of the Gospel so that many more might be added to the number of those being saved by Jesus.