Where Should I Plant a Church in the US?

Next week, Lord willing, I plan to speak at the Great Commission Research Network and Exponential Conference in Orlando. I will be releasing a large study on US evangelicals my team and I have been working on for a few months.

A great deal of US church planting is not guided by field-based realities. We must ask questions related to gospel need.

Where are the least-reached states, cities, and counties?

How many evangelical churches exist per population?

Where are the least-reached areas that include unreached people groups?

The US is the third largest country in the world in population. It is home to 357,000 churches. This country is also home to the third largest number of unreached people groups in the world.

Wise Kingdom stewardship is about church multiplication strategies that come from the apostolic imagination. Rather than planting more churches here, there, and everywhere, it provides a laser-focus that works toward the birthing of churches from the harvest. There is no time to shuffle-sheep into new Kingdom communities.

A Romans 15:20 conviction must influence strategies in the US. Zeal without knowledge is not wise. The one who makes haste with his or her feet misses the way (Prov 19:2).

My study provides knowledge of the least-evangelical areas of the country. Opportunities to establish foundations (where they do not exist) are more likely in these contexts. Here is a glimpse of what will be shared next week:

• Evangelical percentages across all states

• 50 least evangelical metro areas (≤5% evangelical)

• 100 least evangelical counties (≤3% evangelical)

• States with the greatest percentage of evangelical growth (1980-2020)

• Least evangelical church to population ratios by state, metro, and county

In addition to the most current data, I will provide a large Excel file with similar data from 1980, 90, 00, and 10. While most church planters will find these thousands of data points boring, some of you researchers will find them helpful for your work.

Following next week, I will then give everything away here at the site. Now is the time to subscribe below and not miss its release. I will also post a video at my YT channel discussing matters related to the report. Now is a great time to jump over there and not miss the presentation.

Stay tuned!