by Rev. Casey Southerland
PMU Field Director, Cincinnati, OH
the Missions Banner, June 2021

Welcome to the Church Planting edition of the Missions Banner.  Church planting is the mission of the church of Jesus Christ.  We have the expansion of the early church recorded for us in the New Testament, we hear our Lord’s Great Commission and witness the work of God’s Spirit saving souls and calling them together into local churches from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.  And now, I write to you from Grace Bible Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.  The Lord’s Church continues to grow today.  

In addition to supporting Home and Foreign missionaries, PMU is hard at work encouraging the expansion of the Kingdom through church planters here in the US.  In this issue of the Missions Banner, you’ll hear from three church planters who are working in three totally different settings in three different states in our country—Washington, Minnesota and Ohio.  In Washington, Rev. Andy Yong is planting a Korean-American church.  The church has a strong core and reaches new visitors regularly as they seek to get established in the area.  In Minnesota, Rev. Frank Liu is planting in the city of St. Paul, where more than 15% of the population was born in another country.  This is producing a beautiful and ethnically diverse congregation which brings to mind John’s vision from Revelation 7:9 where he saw a multitude of “all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”  In Ohio, Rev. Jason Waeber is serving a community that was once economically strong but hasn’t seen a thriving industry in the area for decades.  He is serving an economically diverse group and seeing the gospel at work in the lives of the congregation, producing a sweet fellowship among those they are reaching.

These men and their families are faithful servants for the glory of the name of Jesus Christ.  Please read their articles and get a sense of the joys and challenges they face.  Additionally, if you would like to help support these church planting works financially, you can give to PMU’s Church Planting Fund.