One of the things Mountain View Community church is committed to, what we are passionate about, and what we are very purposeful in is planting churches--we see this in God's design in the book of Acts. As people are reached with the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus and respond to that life changing message in faith, they are pulled together in a "local church" where they are equipped, built up, and sent out to do the same thing. We believe one of the best expressions to seeing this happen is through the planting and multiplication of local churches (the design we see in the book of Acts).
Over the past several years, we have had the privilege, by the grace of God, to see churches planted in Windsor, CO, Johnson City, TN, Wilmington, NC, and the Czech Republic. One of the true blessings of these church plants is how we stay connected through our relationship with them. This connection or "network" of churches is called "The Crossway Chapel Network of Churches."
The Crossway Chapel network is a great encouragement to not only the leaders of the churches but the bodies as well. This relational "Network" stays connected in several ways:
- Constant communication and sharing of knowledge and resources: not a week goes where there is not leaders sharing ideas and helping each other out in other churches.
- Gathering events to cast vision: at least once a year, the churches in a region get together for a "celebration" event to worship God and be reminded we are part of a greater movement of God beyond just our own churches.
- Sharing of retreats (men's, women's, youth, college)
- Sharing of ministry curriculum and resources
- Sharing of people: we send people from our churches to help each other out for short term needs or long term needs.
- Sharing of money: we also pool some of our money to meet any needs in the other bodies. We have, together with Windsor Community Church, invested in the Wilmington Plant, the Wellington Plant, the building for Johnson City, etc.
- Pastors in that region get together once every three months for encouragement and learning from each other.
- Once a year the pastor's and wives get together for a "Network Huddle" for a time of encouragement and to resource each other.
So as you can tell - this "Network" of churches is a huge blessing - especially for the church plants so that they do not have to re-create the wheel, but can learn and be resourced by the other churches. We believe the Crossway Chapel Network will help in the multiplication of churches and provide a lot of encouragement and resources for each other.
For more information about Crossway Chapel Network of churches - go to www.crosswaychapel.org