BCNE

Church Planting Process   Current Church Plants	Sponsorship
Ethnic Church Planting	Helpful Links
Prospective Church Planters	What New England is Like
Helps for Church Planters	Current Articles
Associational Links	Church Plant Spotlight
Strategist	Contact Us
News	Upcoming Events

The first Southern Baptist Church in New England was planted in 1958. Other churches were planted through the next decades, and the Baptist Convention of New England was constituted in 1983 as a part of the Southern Baptist Convention with 114 churches and missions. Today, we have over 300 churches and established church plants.

Beginning in 2008, we began working toward our new goal to begin 25 new churches each year, assuming a survivability rate of 85%. This will enable us to double the size of each of our associations by 2018. Over the first 25 years, we have averaged 8 survivable starts each year. So why have we established this new goal? 

Reaching the new goal will result in 21 survivable starts each year for a net gain of 210 new starts by 2018. This will move us more into a multiplication mode and allow us to make significant advancement in the Kingdom of our Father. And, reaching the goal will mean that each of our associations will have achieved some of their individual goals of reaching the 14.2 million New Englanders--of which less than 3% currently attend any evangelical church.

We have such a great opportunity in New England because the world has truly come here, mainly through our cities, colleges, and universities. In addition to working with new churches in rural areas and inner city neighborhoods, we work with new starts in the collegiate communities. At any given time, you will find up to 50 mission starts in New England that are made of various languages and ethnic groups (the majority are Hispanic, Brazilian, and Haitian), as well as Anglo and second-generation English speakers. In Upper New England, the demographic is predominantly made up of English-speaking Anglo, but it is filled with many people groups. From the rural farmer to the seaside fishermen, New England has it all. We are even making progress with Muslim and Hindu people groups in various places in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

God continues to send us folks who desire ministries directed toward specific people groups. People of all cultures are just waiting for someone to bring the good news into their context of life. New England is a wonderful place to live, and it's an even better place to serve God. It is truly a mission field. I invite you to come on in and take a look around!