Church planting is now one of the major expressions of Gospel proclamation and Kingdom growth in the 21 st century. In 2018, a UN report projected that 68% of human beings will live and work in cities by 2050. With IC’s already firmly established in global cities, MICN leadership senses this is a kairos moment to join and engage in church planting. In 2019, MICN formed an International Church Planting Team (ICPT) among pastors and leaders already engaged in church planting within the network.
Rev. Warren Reeve, MICN Founder and Executive Team member, and Rev. Christian Zebley, MICN International Church Plant Team member, traveled to Southern California to join the church plant training hosted by Dynamic Church Planting International (DCPI) from February 3-6, 2020 at North Coast Church in Vista, California. They joined with planters, pastors, networks, and lay leaders who gathered for this four-day training. Tracks were offered in Church Planting Essentials, New Church Dynamics, House Church Planting, Church Planting Movements, and Mentoring Church Planters.
Dynamic Church Planting International (DCPI) was founded in 1994 by visionary church planter Dr. Paul Becker. For over 30 years, Paul has gone on regular prayer retreats to receive vision and strategy for the ministry. On one of these retreats, he received a vision for DCPI to plant five million churches to reach the world for Christ by equipping leaders who then equip
others. This “Five Million Vision” has now become a major vision focus for DCPI church planters.
As the DCPI website states: “Our partnerships with church planting leaders around the world exponentially increases the number of leaders trained and puts the vision, leadership, and stewardship for training church planters in the hands of indigenous leaders in their own church planting networks.” (https://dcpi.org/about) DCPI training is free and based on Biblical principles not models of church planting. The goal is to equip, empower, and send out Kingdom multipliers in the ministry of Jesus.
Warren and his wife Debbie are based in Toronto but now preparing to deploy to Paris, France to plant a new English speaking IC in partnership with the French-speaking Martin Luther King IC. They attended the Church Planting Essentials track and became certified trainers in DCPI material.
Christian Zebley currently pastors West Tokyo Union Church (www.wtuc.net), a smaller, traditional IC in the western suburbs of Tokyo while also leading Redeemer Church of Roppongi (www.redeemertokyo.org), a new Redeemer City to City-related IC, that started forming in 2017. He attended the Mentoring Church Planters track since he is already interacting with young, millennial church planters coming to Tokyo. He found the DCPI material to be very clear, Biblically-grounded, and easy-to-apply to church plants of all sizes and contexts. After returning to Tokyo, he became a certified DCPI trainer by completing another track online.
Warren writes, “Traveling from Toronto and Tokyo to meet my fellow church planter Christian Zebley in San Diego was fantastic! We compared notes and exchanged ideas as we attended separate seminars to divide and conquer. Christian was impressed with the content and I was impressed with the reach. The multiple courses and thorough Biblical content taught was deep and pragmatic. DCPI has trained 286,299 leaders in 152 countries around the globe. Let’s join the vision and start some International Churches!”
Warren and Christian hope to offer a DCPI training track at a future MICN event. If you are interested in DCPI or connecting with the MICN International Church Plant Team (ICPT), please contact David Fresch at david@micn.org May God sovereignly lead MICN-related churches and leaders to plant new IC’s in global cities and reach the thousands flocking to urban areas with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Christian Zebley
