On Sunday, February 2, 2025, over 50 people from across the area gathered for the second annual Metro Richmond Church Planting Summit. The event was hosted by City Church of Richmond at its worship location on Monument Avenue in downtown Richmond. Pastors and key lay leaders from ten local churches attended the event.
The keynote speaker for this year’s Summit was Rev. Clint Wilcke, the Coordinator of the Mid-South Church Planting Network, which serves churches and catalyzes church planting across parts of four states (Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana). Rev. Wilcke spoke on the importance of church planting, particularly as a driver for fulfilling the great commission and seeing new believers come faith in Christ.
During the Summit as various church leaders shared some about the history of church planting within the Richmond area over the last 20 years, it was also encouraging to hear Rev. Wilcke’s affirmation of the strength of the network. He both commended the breadth and quality of the work that is already going on here in Virginia and observed that Metro Richmond is well-poised for expansion of church planting efforts moving forward.
The richest part of the Church Planting Summit was the time spent around tables, as attendees learned from one another and prayed for the continuing growth of church planting. Small teams of leaders from ten local churches huddled together and made plans for how their churches could continue to catalyze church planting in their congregations. Questions were asked and experienced planters and core group members were able to plant the seed of their faithfulness into the next generation of church planting teams.
The second annual Metro Richmond Church planting summit reiterated several of the network’s stated goals, reminding those present what God is calling the network to accomplish. One of those goals is that every church would participate in church planting to some extent—whether through prayer, through sharing financial resources, or through sharing human resources. Another goal is to facilitate the planting of one new PCA church each year over the next ten years.
These are ambitious goals and ones that will require coordinated efforts of collaboration and resource sharing. But reaching those goals doesn’t depend on human strength but on the power of the gospel. But as Rev. Wilcke said at the Summit, “If you take the gospel seriously, if you believe that there is power in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, church planting will follow.”
