Develop a Discipleship System
Planting ‘Bright Spots’ in the UMC
By Emily Reece
Starting this month, we intend to focus on some “bright spot” church plants, featuring these stories in our electronic newsletter. Click the blue “Subscribe” button on the left of this page to start receiving these newsletters! Through the annual survey of our congregational developers, we recently gathered information about several ministries to highlight. The first is a virtual church from Western North Carolina.
Checkpoint Church, which describes itself as “the church for nerds, geeks, and gamers,” began in 2020 and is based completely online, using social media platforms to build community. United Methodist News Service ran a story about the church recently, which we’re sharing here:
READ MORE: ‘Church for nerds’ builds community without a building
Earlier this year, Checkpoint Church was also featured on an episode of Path 1’s Field Preachers podcast. Click here to listen.
Western North Carolina congregational developer, Rob Hutchinson, shared these thoughts about Checkpoint:
“Rev. Nathan Webb is GOING where people already are and unashamedly being the church in that space and place. I think he is a modern-day missionary church planter channeling his inner Captain Kirk. New people are already being reached, disciples are being made, and the Gospel is being proclaimed. Meanwhile, Nathan is exploring a new way to share the church with a world that desperately needs it. We are looking forward with hopeful expectation to see where this new trail leads.”
We’d love to hear about your ministries, too! If you have a story to share, please email Emily Reece at [email protected] and tell us the good news.
Emily Reece is the Director of Recruiting, Assessing, and Training for Church Planting at Discipleship Ministries. She is a lifelong United Methodist with 25 years of professional ministry experience. Emily has worked primarily in church planting and revitalization, ministry coaching, resource development, and church communications. Prior to serving for almost 20 years at the General Church and Indiana Conference, she worked in lay ministry coordination for congregations in Illinois and Indiana.
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