It’s been a little over three months since my wife and I stepped down from our ministries at Mesilla Park Community Church to help plant the new church in Las Cruces. I’ve included the text from a newsletter article I submitted for Mesilla Park’s new monthly newsletter to get everybody up to speed on what’s been going on in that time!

In August of 2006, David and Jenny Cunniff were commissioned and “sent out” as church planters from Mesilla Park Community Church. While this isn’t the first church plant that MPCC has been involved in, it is the first since Dennis and the Elders challenged the church with the vision to “double the lives we touch every five years.”

Although the commissioning for the new church took place in August, the actual formal process started in May of this year. David approached his fellow Elders with the news that God was calling him and Jenny to plant a new church in Las Cruces. As one might expect, this was challenging news for the Elders to consider. What would the new church look like? How will this affect MPCC? Does this change any plans that MPCC has been making for the future? What kinds of pitfalls might be involved? What is the Biblical way in which to handle all of this? How can MPCC make sure that this calling is confirmed – and more importantly, how can MPCC test to be sure that this is truly God’s will for the church? Over the next three months, the Elders met regularly along with David to answer these and other questions.

The Cunniffs first came to Mesilla Park Church in the fall of 1994, just over a year after Dennis Diaz became pastor. After a few months, David began playing piano for the Worship Team and Jenny began singing. In 1995, David transitioned to the role of worship leader on Sunday mornings. After a two-year hiatus in Texas (from 1996 to 1998), the Cunniffs came back to MPCC. David joined the church staff as MPCC’s full-time paid Music Director and served in this role for three years. In 2001, David left the church staff to go back to work in his “other field” – Mechanical Engineering. However, he stayed on as MPCC’s main worship leader on a volunteer basis until July of 2006. In the meantime, MPCC appointed and confirmed David as one of the church’s Elders in 2002 – a position he still holds. The calling to become a church planter is one that David has been praying about for the past two years.

Since August, the new church has been working to develop its leadership, define its mission, and set its standard for ministry. It currently meets in the Cunniff’s home, although David is quick to point out that very soon it will be much more than just a “house church.” Ultimately, several new churches will be launched from this first core group once the leadership is identified and developed. Mesilla Park Community Church is going to have a crucial role in testing and confirming this first group of leaders. In time, the new church will consist of a network of home churches all linked together by a well-defined leadership structure. In this way, each home church will have the flexibility and agility to respond to ministry needs as only a small group can; while at the same time being able to contribute to and benefit from the resources of a much larger organization. More than that, however, the network of churches will provide accountability, leadership development, and credibility for the new church in Las Cruces. Once the leadership is in place, Mesilla Park will “cut the strings” and allow the new church to function fully on its own. As the church grows, it will hold periodic “big meetings” to get everybody together at once as a reminder that there is something bigger than just the “house churches” going on.

So why plant a new church? Why not just continue to develop small groups within MPCC, especially in light of the “40 Days of Community” effort? David puts it this way, “As awesome as Mesilla Park is, and as great a pastor as Dennis is, there is a large population of lost people in our city that will never step foot in a traditional church – not even one as great as Mesilla Park.” This segment of our population (which numbers over 40,000 by some estimates) is often called “the un-reachable” – people who have either given up on church completely, or who are culturally so far from Christianity that joining a traditional church would literally be like moving to a foreign country.

This turns out to be an excellent analogy for why to plant a new church. David and the other core families are approaching the task in much the same way as a missionary would in preparing to bring the gospel to a foreign people. They’re studying the culture, learning the language, and identifying what kinds of customs and traditions people have – and choosing to leave behind those Christian traditions that just don’t translate well. This doesn’t mean that the new church is going to forsake the rich heritage that is the Church. Rather, it presents an opportunity to develop new traditions, new expressions of worship, new ways of developing friendship and fellowship, and new ways of telling about the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ and Him alone for a whole new culture. When all is said and done, the new church may not look too much like the church most Americans grew up in. But it might look a lot like churches have in other parts of the world at various times in our history.

Please pray for the new church. It doesn’t even have a name, yet. For now, it is simply called “The Church at the Cunniff’s House.” And stay tuned for more updates in the coming months!