Church Planting Process
What are we doing?
A church plant can be a long process, but we are excited that planting churches is something Jesus has promised to do as He gathers people together into communities of faith, under His care.
This church plant could be described as a “scratch plant.” In contrast to a “daughter church” plant that often starts with a group of people setting out from an existing church, a scratch plant starts from “scratch.” One of the first steps is meeting and gathering a group of people from the target location who would embrace and engage with the mission starting and being a new church.
What’s going on?
Typically the process of a scratch plant could be described with the following stages:
Stage 1 - Preparation and Training (completed)
Stage 2 - Gathering (completed)
Stage 3 - Core Group Development (completed)
Stage 4 - Public Launch (This is where we are!)
Stage 5 - Establishment
Future Stage - Multiplication by helping to plant other churches in Southern CT!
1st “soft launch service” - Nov 2024
End-of-summer lunch - Aug 2025
New full-time location in downtown South Norwalk - Mar 2025
Stage 4 - Public Launch
On November 10, 2024 we “soft launched” our Sunday service on Sunday afternoons in the fellowship hall of a local Lutheran church. A “soft launch” is when you start a service primarily for the people you already have in order to start worshiping together, while practicing and preparing to invite guests.
In March 2025 we moved to a new full-time location in the downtown area of South Norwalk. This allowed us to move our service to Sunday mornings and to host Bible studies and gatherings during the week.
And then on May 4, 2025, we celebrated our public lunch when we “announced” ourselves as a new church serving the Norwalk community; we started advertising, increased of signage, and improved our online footprint.
Since then … we seeking to grow and establish our visible and accesible presence. Currently we are averaging 45 people on a Sunday morning. You can see more about our church at gpcnorwalk.com
Stage 3 - Core Group Development
Starting in January of 2024, we intentionally transitioned from meeting as a Small Group Bible Study to meeting as a Church Planting Core Group. We didn’t assume that everyone would see themselves as all in with this transition, instead, we invited people to consider and pray about whether God would use them to help set the core foundation for a new church.
During the year we studied the big ideas of what we believe as Christians (through a class on “Confessional Theology” working through the Westminster Confession) and the core foundations of what it means to be a Church (through a class called “The Heart of Christianity”).
During this stage we lost some people to moves and transitions, but also welcomed others so that we were averaging 35 people, now meeting publicly in a church fellowship hall.
Stage 2 - Gathering
In June 2023, we started hosting a weekly Bible study at our house as a way to to gather Christians and seekers who God might use to bring together as the first signs of a new church in Norwalk.
Each week we had dinner together before reading and discussing our way through there Gospel of John. John’s Gospel is an especially helpful book to see how Jesus came to bring bring the saving presence of God through communities untied around following Him.
During this stage God provided 20-25 people who began to pray about God planting this church in Norwalk.
Stage 1 - Preparation and Training
This stage started all the way back in 2020 when we went through our denominations “Church Planting Assessment,” which helps evaluate whether a Pastor (and his wife and family) are gifted and suited for church planting.
After being “provisionally approved,” we pursued more intentional training and partnerships with our sending Church, Grace Church Stamford, and the church planting network, Mission Anabaino.
In summer 2022, we moved to Norwalk to begin "“planting” ourselves in the local community and, after an season of initial fundraising, Brandon officially started his “Church Planter Apprenticeship” program in January 2023.