Urban Church Planting

Training for urban leaders

Our Evangel School of Urban Church Planting is for Christian workers who want to plant healthy churches among the urban poor. Our training is specifically designed to equip teams to reach under-resourced communities. Neighborhoods flourish when healthy, reproducing churches are planted among the urban poor.

Prospective church planters receive coaching and training from seasoned urban church planters who help them develop a plan for church structure, services, outreach, finances, discipleship, and leadership development.

Students emerge empowered, equipped, and ready to activate their calling to plant churches and share the good news of Jesus Christ in their own communities.

Urban church planters are equipped to plant healthy churches

When you partner with World Impact, you ensure that urban church planters get the resources and support they need to plant and sustain healthy churches in communities of poverty.

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Church Planting Partners

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Church Planting Workers

STORY

Training takes leaders from passion to action

Many church planters are where you might least expect them. They’re a normal family in the neighborhood with regular jobs, and a unique calling to serve the Lord. World Impact helps start church-planting movements by identifying these leaders, equipping them with the training and resources they need, and commissioning them to do what they do best. One of these leaders is Prodip Das who is an Uber driver and church planter in Queens, New York.

The name “Prodip” (PRAH-deep) is Bangla for “lamp.” He’s not sure why his parents named him this, but perhaps it was because they were part of the .3% Christian population of Bangladesh. His grandfather converted from Hinduism and experienced torture and discrimination as a result. Since then, his family has carried the lamp of the Gospel into their community. His father was a pastor and taught Prodip about Christ; however, Prodip did not embrace the Gospel for himself until he was 18.

Persecution, Calling, Queens

While in Bangladesh, Prodip served as an elder in a local church and lived in the church building for three years. The neighbors were religious extremists who threw garbage into the church daily. “We kept to ourselves and cleaned the garbage silently. That way we survived,” he said. It was during this time of social and psychological persecution that he felt a special call to preach the Word of God.

Pastor Prodip moved his family to Queens, New York, to pursue an education in Christian theology and ministry. There are entire Bengali neighborhoods in Queens lined with restaurants, markets, wedding venues, clinics, money transfer offices, immigration services, hair stylists, and places of worship, all forming cities within a city.

Just as in Bangladesh, there is a small number of Christians among Bangladeshis living in New York. They work long hours, serve in small churches, and share the hope of Jesus with their neighbors. While serving as associate pastor at Bangla Bible Church and earning extra income as an Uber driver, Prodip achieved a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. in Christian theology and Ministry from King’s College and Newburgh Theological Seminary.

A New Movement

A fellow Bengali church planter, Pastor Joseph Biswas, recruited Pastor Prodip to become a certified Evangel Dean through World Impact’s Evangel School of Church Planting. He used his certification to start the Evangel Bengali School of Church Planting.

“Our goal is to train leaders to plant churches and preach the Gospel in their own locations,” said Pastor Prodip. So far, the Evangel Bengali School of Church Planting has hosted five training events with 45 leaders. Through the ministry of the first group of church planters, 40 people have come to Christ and been baptized. Recently, another 39 people were baptized. Six churches have been planted. By strategically placing trained church planters in different corners of Bangladesh, Pastor Prodip has a goal of planting 40 churches in Bangladesh by 2025.

The ministry of Pastor Prodip Das is further proof that identifying leaders, supplying them with the training and resources they need, and supporting them while on mission is how church-planting movements begin. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. We need laborers to train the people, so that they can reach out the Gospel of Christ with the Bengali people. I’m asking for the support for the Evangel School of Church Planting and World Impact, so that we can do a great thing for the Kingdom of God.”

Pastor Prodip's story is possible because of your generosity

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