My name is Cedric Nelms and I am the pastor of Chosen Generation Fellowship Church, a grass-roots church plant in South Los Angeles. As an Associate of World Impact and church planter in Los Angeles, CA, I was able to attend the Evangel School of Urban Church Planting Dean training. This great experience allowed me to meet other members of the World Impact family, and gave me the opportunity to learn from Rev. Dr. Don Davis, Hank Voss, Bob Engel, and other World Impact leaders about the process of church planting in an urban context. It was great to spend a couple of days in Wichita, KS, learning how to train others to plant churches that will be an expression of the goodness of God. The knowledge, relationships built, and the opportunity to run a school in the near future are invaluable!
There are 18 million people that live in metro Los Angeles. Out of those people, 50% are not connected with the church. Metro Los Angeles is 45% Hispanic, 33% Anglo, 8% African American, and 13% Asian. All these statistics tell us is that Los Angeles is one of the best cities to begin a new church movement in! My church is striving to be a church that is multicultural, multigenerational, and multi-socioeconomic. We want to impact the community with resources, love, and the Gospel!
My team and I officially launched our church plant four weeks ago in the City of Watts, CA. This launch would not have been possible without the help of the Evangel School. Evangel helped me to use the team building concepts that I learned to engage my team and identify their giftedness. Through this process, we were better able to serve the church once we launched.
We are also planning to have our own Evangel School for the West Region in June. My team will be a part of this inaugural training and the fruit that will come from this will be invaluable. The Evangel School of Church Planting will greatly assist the urban leader, like myself, to plant healthy, missional, and gospel-centered churches.
Click here to learn more about urban church planting.