ODESSA
CONGREGATION
WESLEY CHAPEL
CONGREGATION
One Church. Two Locations. One Mission.
We exist to glorify God by making, maturing, and multiplying disciples who are learning to live and love like Jesus. The book of Acts makes it clear that the natural end-goal of a “be-one, make-one” discipleship process is for new converts and disciples to form new God-centered, healthy churches, as the Lord leads.
Thus, we believe that our missional mandate as a discipleship-focused church, requires us to be intentionally and perpetually on the lookout for God to lead us into the next church planting initiative, as He carries His gospel to every tribe, tongue, and nation regionally, nationally, and globally.
Since our founding in 2006 Keystone Bible Church has had church planting in our DNA, and by God’s grace we will continue to leverage our resources as a church-planting church, for the glory of God and the advancement of His gospel mission.
There could be numerous strategies employed for church planting initiatives, and there are a vast array of criteria that might cause one strategy to be more effective than another in specific situations. For example, questions like these are important to consider: Is this a local, regional, national, or global church planting initiative? Is this a plant where there was not previously a church? Is it a revitalization project for another existing church that is dying or unhealthy? Are their cross-culture sensitivities? How far is this church plant located from the church facility that is initiating and overseeing the plant? Are there current Keystone members already commuting from the area that is being considered? Answers to questions like these, will likely cause Keystone to employ different church planting strategies for different circumstances. However, we do believe that the “multi-congregational” model best describes our strategy for local and regional church planting and church revitalization initiatives, as opposed to those initiatives that would be targeted for greater distances away.
What does “multi-congregational” mean?
In our multi-congregational model, Keystone functions as one church, gathering in multiple locations (currently the two locations of Odessa and Wesley Chapel), under one shared eldership. As one church we are one organization, with one employer ID number, one tax ID number, one governing constitution, and one bank account.
We strive for a high degree of continuity between congregations by uniting and partnering around our doctrine, philosophy, practices, vision and mission statements, functional pillars, KBC culture, and methods and systems. As God directs, each congregation also has the responsibility and opportunity, under the Keystone Bible Church combined and local leadership, to contextualize ministry to most effectively accomplish gospel mission in each geographic region.