New Life's Church Planting model has been to follow the pattern of the Acts church and start at the "city gate," or Phnom Penh, and then move to the rest of the country.

God has led New Life to plant churches through relationships. Most of the provincial churches have been started when a member of the Phnom Penh church invites a team to share the Gospel with a friend or relative in another village.

History

In 1999 we started sending teams into the rural provinces nearby Phnom Penh, Cambodia. By 2000, we had planted our first churches in Tray M'yab village of Kampong Thom province, Prey Chap village of Kampong Spue province, and Tung Kea of Takeo province. "To put our Church planting work into perspective," says Pastor Jesse McCaul, who took over for his father, Pastor Chuck McCaul in 2007, "it's important to understand that almost all the villages we are planting Churches in are villages that have never had any Christian witness in them - since the creation of the world! That means that the Churches planted in these villages are the very first Churches ever in these villages." By 2010, the central church in Phnom Penh reached 1,000 members, even more impressive since, according to its leadership, approximately 98% of its members came to Lord through New Life. Also, there are 60 churches and outreach points established and growing in 14 provinces of Cambodia. "Our goal is not just to 'play Church' or just gather crowds," says Pastor Jesse. "We believe that God wants to bring positive transformation to the Kingdom of Cambodia and the surrounding regions. We anticipate that many of the future leaders of the nation will come from and be reached through New Life Fellowship of Churches."

Goals for 2020

New Life's vision for the future is three fold:

1) To plant at least one church in all 24 provinces of Cambodia.
2) To plant churches among Cambodian and Khmer speaking peoples in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos.
3) To send out missionaries to surrounding countries

New Life Church believes God wants to grow the Church of Cambodia rapidly, and hope that all of these goals will be completed by year 2020. Already churches have been planted in 14 of 24 provinces. This vision is being realized every day, and with your help we can make even greater progress in the rural provinces of Cambodia. Partner with us (through prayer & donations) and achieve God's vision of a Cambodia filled with people passionate for His Kingdom!

"Our goal isn't to just put a flag on the map identifying that we've entered a particular village," says Pastor Jesse. "We believe that God's standard is to make disciples and have healthy Churches - Churches that aren't just huddled together in a corner of the village waiting till Jesus returns - but Churches that are being salt and light to their communities. Now we are beginning to see that as whole communities begin to be transformed and even more excitingly, these first generation Churches begin to 'have babies' and plant second, third and fourth generation Churches."

Steps for Church Planting

1. Raise up evangelist teams:  We raise upCambodian leaders from people at New Life, and do not "hire" them from other churces or movements. These teams are prepared to speak to Cambodians in a way that makes sense in their own culture.
Establish an Outreach Point:  Generally, one person in the Phnom Penh church or a provincial church invites an evanglist team to share the Gospel with a friend or relative in another village.
• The team begins by answering questions about Christianity. There are often huge misunderstandings about God, Jesus and the Church. For example, many have heard that when a Christian dies they nail them to a cross and then bury them in a hole!
• We do not plant churches where there already is a church. Only 1% of Cambodia is Christian. Since there are hundreds of villages that have never heard of Jesus Christ, if we find that one of the villages we're working with already has a church, we will move on to another village.
• We believe in healing and deliverance as a sign of the Kingdom of God. When we work in a village, we pray for the sick and cast out demons. When God shows His power, people understand Jesus is the one, true, living God.
Follow up on Outreach Point:   After building relationships in a village, we send an evangelist team to the Outreach Point weekly. As they follow up, some of the villagers hearts are stirred to profess their faith in Christ.  The villagers usually decide to burn their altars and spirit house at this time too.
• The evangelist team starts a group to disciple the new Christians called Foundations class. At the same time, they continue to evangelize others in the village.
Establish an Emerging Church:  The new church needs a pastor from among the villagers. The evangelist team prayerfully chooses a few men to personally train.
• In addition to the personal training from the evangelist team, New Life established the School of Leaders to train all of their church leaders in leadership and Biblical studies.
• After two years of training, a new pastor is ready to take the reigns of the church. The evangelist remains his mentor and the pastor continues to attend the School of Leaders classes.
Establish a fully fledged Provincial Church:   A pastor is raised up from the village. They begin to run their own discipleship classes and children's ministry.
• Before this, they have been meeting out of the house of the pastor or another church member. At this point, New Life begins searching for a property and raising money for them to build their own church building.
• As the church continues to grow in size, they begin to reach out to other villages nearby to plant a daughter church.