Gailyn and Becky Van Rheenen

by Gailyn Van Rheenen

I remember my 40th birthday. My wife Becky and I were concluding 13 years of ministry among the Kipsigis of Kenya, where we had seen hundreds of people come to Christ and 100 churches planted (now over 250). Missionary co-workers gathered at the house of one of my co-workers and conducted a hilarious birthday "dirge." On that day we remembered God’s mighty acts in our lives and the funny things that happened along the journey.

A few days ago, Jan. 4, 2006, I reached a new milestone. I became one of the first of the boomer generation to reach their 60th birthday. On that day Becky and I remembered with thanksgiving what God has done during the past 20 years. God blessed us with the task of training church-planting missionaries at Abilene Christian University for over 17 years. They were good years!

I taught undergraduate classes in missions, advised missions students, and taught graduate courses. I evaluated my own effectiveness by the recruiting and training of effective church-planting missionaries sent to other areas of the world. Becky and I enjoyed mentoring groups of future missionaries in our home through African Mission Fellowship and Wednesday PM (Prayers for Mission).

During the Spring semester of 2000, the seeds for a significant transition began to germinate in our minds and hearts. ACU granted me a sabbatical to study the local church and missions. The end result was a book written with Bob Waldron of the Missions Resource Network entitled The Status of Missions: A Nationwide Survey of Churches of Christ (ACU Press, 2002).

During that semester we felt not only the growing receptivity of North America but also the inability of existing churches to connect with many who were searching for spirituality, community, and values. Through these experiences we were called by God to a new ministry—a ministry for missional renewal and church planting.

After this sabbatical a number of influences came together to shape my philosophy of ministry and catapult us out of the academy and once again into full-time church plating. I was influenced by the Gospel and Our Culture Network. As a church planter, I continually asked, "What do missional theologies lead us to become and do in both the ministries of church renewal and church planting in various North American contexts?" I felt the Holy Spirit’s urging to once again become a missionary by equipping and caring for church planters in North America.

I retired from ACU during the fall semester of 2003, and Becky and I initiated Mission Alive in January 2004. We moved to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, where we could participate in church planting ministries and more easily travel to other church planting contexts.

The purpose of Mission Alive is "to discover, equip, place, and nurture church-planting leaders who will plant missional churches in suburbs, city centers, poverty areas, and university contexts with unbelievers as the primary target." Missional churches are holy communities formed by the calling and sending of God and reflecting the redemptive reign of God in Christ. Their theologies are reflected in the practices of spiritual formation and incarnational evangelism within the context of Christian community.

The ministry tasks of Mission Alive are to . . .

• equip church planters through a series of training labs, personal coaching, and collaborative retreats
• provide church planter care through a process of spiritual mentoring and retreats
• work with churches to plant churches through church planting workshops and congregational equipping and partnering.

In 2005 we saw our first three churches launched. All the church planters are graduates of ACU and two are continuing graduate education through ACU. Chris and Heidi Chappotin in Southwest Fort Worth (www.christjourney.net), Bryan and Robyn Barrett in Lexington, Kentucky, and Chris and Rachel Smith in downtown Austin.

Our first two seasons of life have prepared us for this season. As missionaries in Africa, we learned to connect with searchers and skeptics of various cultures and to contextually plant churches. While ministering at ACU, we learned to equip church planting missionaries and help local churches to become redemptive fellowships. Today, God uses us to employ these experiences to help "missional people plant missional churches in the mission of God."