Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

P ART I: D EVELOPING U RBAN C ONGREGATIONS • 23

World Impact and Church Planting

Twenty-five years ago Keith Phillips began a Bible Club in a Watts housing project. From this starting point as an inner-city youth ministry, World Impact has evolved into a full-fledged urban mission with more than two hundred staff in seven cities and three training centers. The guiding goal of making disciples has led to the development of training programs, schools and churches. God’s leading is evident in World Impact’s development as a national ministry. The work began with few material resources and a young staff. Much of the early work relied upon volunteers. Because they were the most accessible, children became the early focus of evangelism. Eventually the desire to make disciples led to an incarnational ministry that included teens and adults. This ushered in the development of a worship service and support services. Each city ministry developed differently depending on its staff and resources but the national focus of attention changed from one period to the next: 4

1. Evangelism with focus on children, 1965-1974

2. Discipleship with focus on teens, 1975-1981

3. Support services with focus on meeting community needs (camps, schools, clinics, housing, etc.), 1982

4. Celebration worship as initial step toward church planting, 1982-1990

5. Indigenous Church-planting, 1990

In 1990 World Impact’s Executive Board pointed toward the church planting stage of our ministry development, announcing the goal of planting self-governing, self-supporting and self-reproducing indigenous churches in the inner city.

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4 This does not suggest that the prior emphases were abandoned as each new stage began. Each phase constituted the foundation for the next phase of ministry and each phase is an ongoing and integral part of our current ministry. Youth and teen evangelism, discipleship and support services undergird and work alongside our church-planting ministries.