Four NAMB church planters recognized

ATLANTA (BP) — In the past two years alone, Willie Jacobs Jr. has been the primary strategist for developing 18 new African-American church starts through the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, and he has four more on the drawing board for 2008. Over the course of his ministry career, he has helped plant as many as 50 churches in Texas, Ohio, the Virgin Islands, West Indies, and Nigeria.

That’s why Jacobs was one of four missionaries to win church planting awards during the North American Mission Board’s annual Church Planting Missionary and National Missionary Forum, Feb. 27-March 1, in Atlanta. Some 350 church planters attended the meeting.

He joined Phil McConnell, Phill Hall, and Al Fernandez as NAMB’s top church planter award winners.

The year before McConnell and his wife, Ann, began serving in Tolleson, Arizona, Estrella Baptist Association reported no new church plants. In his first year, he personally started one church and was instrumental in planting a second. Over the next two years, McConnell took the lead in starting six churches.

Hall serves as a church starting coordinator for the Arkansas Baptist Convention and is the strategist for the eastern half of the state. With a cross-cultural focus, Hall has led the way in planting African-American and Anglo churches in Arkansas and Iowa.

As a church planting missionary since 2004, Fernandez has established a church planting multiplication center in South Florida’s tri-county area around Miami. Instrumental in launching several multiplying, multi-ethnic churches, he also coaches church planters and pastors.