Walk with us

Starting or leading a community? You don’t have to do it alone

Starting an inclusive, progressive, justice-minded, or post-evangelical church? We don’t plant churches for you. We walk alongside communities that are joining God in what God is already doing in their neighborhoods, offering coaching, peers, practical support, and a place to belong.

New Life Fellowship, Wayne County, Ohio.

Who this is for

Thinking about starting a church?

You don’t need Mennonite roots, a building, a big budget, a seminary degree, or a finished plan.

And you won’t get a template. We believe contextualizing ministry is a tool of decolonization, so we’ll help your community take shape from its own neighborhood, culture, and language.

People starting something new

You feel drawn to start something that doesn’t exist yet: a dinner church, a house church, a wild church, an online gathering.

Communities already gathering

You’ve started something, and you’re looking for a home, accountability, and support.

Leaders in transition

Maybe you’re a post-evangelical pastor or leader whose convictions have changed, and your old network no longer has room for you. You won’t have to hide here.

Depth, not size

We’re not counting heads

Many of our communities are small on purpose. We pay attention to depth of belonging, following Jesus’ way, love for neighbors, healthy leadership, and whether your community can keep going in a way that’s good for its people and its neighbors.

We’re a small community, but we feel our presence as a peace church in Grand Rapids is important.

Alaina Dobkowski, Grand Rapids Mennonite Fellowship · source

What we offer

How we walk alongside you

Coaching

Conversation and practical help from our Associate Conference Minister, shaped around your context rather than a one-size-fits-all program.

Grants

CDC and Mennonite Church USA both offer grants for emerging communities of faith.

Peers

A monthly Zoom gathering for emerging community leaders during the school year, plus friendships with others doing this work.

Credentialing & belonging

Lay-led and bivocational leaders welcome, no MDiv required, with the care and accountability that keep vulnerable people safe. Provisional membership in CDC, with your community still discerning its own way.

Fiscal sponsorship

You focus on love and community. We’ll help with the paperwork.

People start churches because they have theological convictions and want to make the world a better place. Few do it because they want to figure out balance sheets and legal paperwork.

Through fiscal sponsorship, an emerging community can operate directly under Central District Conference. We manage the finances and the legal pieces, so you can focus on listening, loving your neighbors, and building community until you’re ready to become an independent organization.

Learning together

You won’t be starting from scratch

Monthly leaders’ gathering. During the school year, emerging community leaders meet on Zoom each month to share what they’re learning, pray for one another, and think through challenges together.

A training cohort, coming soon. Central District Conference is developing a training cohort for emerging community leaders, with help from Chris Scott of Mennonite Mission Network. It hasn’t launched yet, so let us know if you’d like to hear when it does.

Support across the denomination. Chris leads much of Mennonite Church USA’s denominational work with church planting and is developing more supports for new communities across the country.

Step by step

What to expect

  1. Start a conversation

    Reach out to Matt or schedule a meeting. No application and no pressure.

  2. Get to know one another

    We listen to your story, your context, and your commitments, and you learn about Anabaptist faith and our conference.

  3. Listen, notice, experiment, learn (and repeat)

    Together we practice a simple cycle, again and again: listen to your neighbors and to one another, look for where God is already at work, try small experiments, learn from what happens, and then listen some more. Nothing is a failure here, only something to learn from.

    ListenSee where God is already at workExperimentLearnListen some more

  4. Deepen the relationship

    Leadership credentialing, provisional membership, coaching, and the monthly leaders’ gathering.

  5. Keep walking together

    When your community is ready, it may become a full member of CDC. There’s no timeline to hit.

Ready to talk?

Schedule a conversation with Matt

No application and no pressure. Outside our region? Reach out anyway, and we’ll help you find the right partners in Mennonite Church USA.

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