From the Ground Up: Planting a Church Planting Movement in the Northwest

Church planting is often viewed as something we do once a church is large enough, resourced enough, or ready to expand. But what if that’s the wrong place to start? What if church planting is not the end goal, but the fruit of faithfulness at every level of life—starting in the family, extending into vocations and education, and culminating in the church as the equipping and sending center for mission?

Heritage Covenant Church

At Heritage Covenant Church, we believe that the church planting movement we long to see in the Northwest begins from the ground up. It’s not built on branding, programs, or platforms. It’s built on households that honor Christ, churches that disciple faithfully, and communities that live covenantally and missionally—together.

This is The Heritage Way.

1. It Starts in the Home: Family as the First Mission Field

Before there can be a movement, there must be a foundation. The family is that foundation.

If the Great Commission means anything to us as covenant people, it means we must first disciple those under our roof. Faithful church planting begins with fathers and mothers who lead worship in their homes, raise children in the fear of the Lord, and see hospitality as kingdom work.

At Heritage, we view the home as a greenhouse for gospel formation. When families become training grounds for worship and witness, they produce the kind of mature disciples who can form the backbone of future churches.

2. Every Vocation Is a Platform for the Kingdom

God has placed His people in every corner of the Northwest—not just in churches, but in offices, farms, schools, shops, and neighborhoods. We believe every vocation is sacred when offered to Christ.

A church planting movement begins when the people of God understand their daily work as part of God's mission, not separate from it. When members of our congregation begin seeing their coworkers as neighbors to love, and their job sites as fields ready for harvest, the church’s footprint stretches beyond Sunday and beyond the building.

It is in the rhythms of ordinary work that extraordinary gospel conversations often begin.

3. Reclaiming Education as Discipleship

Education is never neutral. It is always shaping the heart, affections, and worldview of the next generation. That’s why we believe a church planting movement must also prioritize Christian education—in the home, in Christian schools, and in the church itself.

We are committed to catechesis, worldview training, and covenantal instruction. We see education not as an escape from culture, but as a means of forming children who will one day stand firm in their faith, lead their families, and plant and pastor churches across the region.

If we want to see generational faithfulness, we must start teaching toward it now.

4. The Church as the Sending Center

The local church is not a static institution; it is a dynamic body called to grow, multiply, and send. Our mission at Heritage Covenant Church is to be more than a healthy congregation—we aim to become a sending church that raises up leaders, supports new works, and plants churches that will themselves plant churches.

We don’t want to just gather a crowd. We want to shepherd a people who live covenantally, worship reverently, disciple intentionally, and then go joyfully to places that need gospel-preaching, elder-led, confessional Reformed churches.

This includes splanting—strategically planting churches in neighboring towns where multiple families already live—and supporting core teams through training, resources, and spiritual oversight.

5. The World Needs Faithful Churches

We live in a post-Christian, disenchanted age—but God is not done with the Northwest. From the isolated rural towns of Idaho to the growing cities of Oregon and Washington, the need is urgent. And our strategy is not complexity. It’s covenantal faithfulness.

We don’t need flashier methods. We need more faithful households, faithful churches, and faithful shepherds willing to plant where no one has yet sown. The goal is not simply a handful of new churches. The goal is a movement—a wave of worshiping communities, rooted in the gospel, committed to the confessions, grounded in the Means of Grace, and actively multiplying across the Northwest.

From a Church Plant to a Church Planting Church

Heritage Covenant Church is a Church Plant, but our prayer is not merely to plant—it’s to reproduce. Our vision is to plant churches the way churches have always been planted: not by hype, but by households, elders, preaching, and prayer.

If we’re going to see a movement, we must build it from the ground up:

• Start with the family

• Reclaim vocation and education

• Strengthen the church as a sending center

• Reach the world with faithful, multiplying churches

This is how a church planting movement begins—slowly, intentionally, and by the grace of God. And by God’s grace, it’s already beginning.