As the Church Planting ministry of the IPHC, Evangelism USA sees first hand the impact that the Global Outreach Offering has in reaching the lost.  New churches are statistically accounting for a large percentage of the new growth our church is experiencing.  Your giving to GO makes planting churches like Fellowship Church of Moore/Oklahoma City possible.  The story below is written by John Youell, pastor of Fellowship Church in Moore. When you give to GO, you have a part in the Kingdom expansion that is taking place through these church plants.  
-- Rev. Rick Fountain, Director, Church Planting/Development, EVUSA

The sun had barely risen in the eastern sky when the trailer truck containing our church rolled into the parking lot of Warren Theaters on Sunday, March 8, 2009.  A team of 30 volunteers began the process of turning three theaters into places of worship.  With each cart that left the trailer our anticipation grew.  Would anyone show up?  Would we be able to get all the theaters set up and ready to go on time?  Would the doors to the theater be open?

When the band took their places and the first chord was struck we looked up to find 180 people crammed into Theater 2.  With tears filling our eyes, Fellowship Church was launched.  That day 13 people gave their hearts to Christ.  When we dismissed we knew the dream had become reality.  We will never forget that day or the people who helped make it possible.

This was not your normal church start up.  The word launch means to catapult.  We hoped to start a new church that would skip several baby steps in the hopes of being healthy and sustained within the first year.  To do this, it was important in our strategy to look like we had been a church for many years instead of just a few weeks.  This meant raising and investing a large amount of money for equipment and marketing, neither of which is a cheap endeavor. 

While building our launch budget, we began to explore with our sponsoring church to forge a new type of mothering church concept.  As our discussions continued they agreed to continue my salary and keep me on staff until their daughter congregation could take over the burden.  In return we agreed to give half of the tithes of the launch team members who left our sponsoring church in order to help us start Fellowship.  17 people came with us.  Now 3 months later, TCC has grown by more than they released and the monthly income has nearly doubled!  

The Heartland Conference has also played a huge role in funding us.  We are doing things together that I never thought I would see.  We are on the forefront of out-of-the-box church planting and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  

Through the years I don’t think I really understood the importance of the Global Outreach offering until my family and I accepted the challenge of planting Fellowship Church.  It is safe to say that EVUSA and the GO offering were instrumental in helping us establish Fellowship Church.  In fact, we could not have done it without them.  I have become convinced of the need to plant and fund church planting like never before.  No one organization can do it alone.  Others helped us get started - including everyone who has given in the GO offering.  Together we are making a difference for the Kingdom and Fellowship Church is proud to be a part of the church planting revolution in IPHC Ministries.