Reformed church in in the Midwest and West Coast

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Yes and North Park should've merged with Redeemer or Trinity. But they did not. They folded.


About the Mt. Salus / St. Paul merger into Pinehaven?

This statement isn't correct. You are looking at that thread from 2013 and assuming much. Mt Salus joined St. Paul. They remained St. Paul for many years. St. Paul moved from S. Jackson to North Clinton. They changed their name to Pinehaven. That whole thing took several several years. Over a decade.

I don't really need to start with any blogs, I was there at the beginning of Redeemer, close to the congregation of Trinity and was a member of the Presbytery. I know the real story, in both the 'blogs' there is a super-positive spin put on everything and FPC looks to be the savior of all. I would not agree with that. It was mostly the work of the members leaving trinity (1/3 of them) to plant this church. Of course the Presbytery oversaw the whole thing. Trinity did not plant that church nor did FPC, but I won't go into the details .
 
Some of your facts are off. Trinity is still within the city limits.

I didn't say it wasn't. I said the Methodist church moved out of the city. "buying a large Methodist facility from a congregation which decided to exit the city limits." But, that statement I did make was incorrect. While CUMC moved north, the new location is south of County Line. So I was incorrect, but you made the wrong correction.

in both the 'blogs'
If you lived in Jackson, you ought to know that the 'Clarion-Ledger' isn't a blog. Speaking of blogs, you might like this version a bit more: http://singingchurch.blogspot.com/2013/09/report-from-field-redeemer-pres-jackson.html
Or Trinity's more detailed explanation here: http://www.tpcjackson.org/about/ (about half way down the page).

You should all focus on your local areas and plant good churches.

On that we can agree.
 
As someone who has never left the East Coast I have no experiential knowledge of how rural or not rural the UP is but I imagine planting one reformed church there is not going to the solve the problem. As others have stated church planting is hard, it takes time, money and resources which is why it tends to be the most successful when done in an area where the local presbytery or classis can share time, money, members and other resources. So it is hard to just go and plant a bunch of churches somewhere there aren't existing churches especially if we are talking about a more rural area. As Jack pointed out there are groups like Methodists that plant based of some sort of central planning but that doesn't mean those plants last. If you take the time to try and plant a church you want it to be one that takes root, and ideally be planting churches nearby it in the future. Any sort of planting work in the UP should probably be carried out by the denomination or denominations who have resources closest to that area.
 
With the influence of large urban churches such as Redeemer New York, and its City To City planting network, I can say, without a doubt, cities will receive a fair amount of attention.
 
As someone who has never left the East Coast I have no experiential knowledge of how rural or not rural the UP is but I imagine planting one reformed church there is not going to the solve the problem

In the UP there are few bigger towns with more than 25,000 members, the largest are Marquette and Escabana, these are 2 key locationswher churches should be planted first.
 
Ok UP was not settled by scotts, Utah is the least Christian Stated in the USA, but it has 7-8 PCA churches, because other existing PCA churches invested time and money to plant there. In Utah there was no PCA church till early 90s.

The same should be happen in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
 
Utah is the least Christian Stated in the USA, but it has 7-8 PCA churches

Look at the map. All but two are in the suburban Salt Lake City area - large metro area, dynamic, suburban population. (One is in suburban Layton, which is within commuting distance of SLC, the last is in a resort area, which has what may be an even more dynamic population). There was also a lack of evangelical competition.

Look, drum up a core group of a dozen or two adults and a couple of hundred thousand for funding, and see how things go.
 
I'll just add that the OPC had a church plant in Marquette area (univ. town) 15yrs ago or so. It failed.

So, sometimes you try, spend precious, limited time and $$$, and things don't work out like you hope.

But Christ is building his church; we aren't building his church. Our labors are not in vain in the Lord.



*And I'll add to that note, the PuritainBoard had a Baptist member from the early days, who went to Escanaba area and planted a Macarthur-type church. Been a long time since he posted. Our stunted senses/awareness/time-scale really doesn't capture the scope of whatever it is Christ is doing. We're like little kids along for the ride.
 
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