Introduction
Every faithful church must decide not only what it believes but how it will live out those beliefs. Doctrine gives us the bones; philosophy of ministry puts flesh on them.
At East River Church, we’ve laid out eight foundational commitments that shape how we apply our theology to real life. If I were to add a ninth, it would be this: we are committed to local missions.
We don’t need to save the world. We need to be faithful where God has planted us. The gospel moves best through ordinary churches led by ordinary pastors who preach the Word and love their people well. That’s where the real reformations begin.
The Logic of Local Missions
By local missions, I mean church planting and church renewal. That’s the heart of our calling.
Foreign missions are good and necessary, and we celebrate every faithful effort abroad. But our first responsibility is the field beneath our own feet. You can’t send missionaries across the world while your own region starves for faithful churches.
For us, that means we’re focused on Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, which is where we call home. People here are straightforward, steady, and not easily swayed by trends. This region values patience and sees through anything fake, and I appreciate that.
Limits are not a curse. They’re a gift. When you stop chasing every horizon, you gain focus. You build roots. You make something that can last.
The Challenges Ahead
If we’re serious about building a regional movement of church planting and renewal, we have to solve two major problems.
First, the ministerial crisis. There are fewer and fewer qualified, prepared, and sent pastors. Demographic decline, cultural contempt for authority, and the rising cost and inconvenience of seminary have all hollowed out the pipeline. The result: churches with sheep and no shepherds.
Second, the support problem. The first five to ten years of a church plant are fragile. Every planter must be a pastor, but not every pastor is cut out to be a planter. Many good men get ground to dust because they were sent out without assessment, support, or oversight.
So we must answer two questions:
How do we find and form men who can plant and renew faithfully?
How do we sustain and strengthen them through those first hard years?
Solve those, and you can build something enduring.
Building the Foundations
We’ve started small, but we’ve started. Our pastoral internship program at East River will graduate its first intern this January. Lord willing, he’ll come on as an assistant pastor. It’s been a success, though we’ve learned a lot along the way. God gave us a strong first candidate and taught us through the challenges. We’re improving the process and plan to take on one to three men at a time who fit our criteria.
We’ve also launched an annual pastors’ conference. It’s not about celebrity speakers. Many of the so-called big names today aren’t pastors anymore; they’re professionals speakers. And while speaking skill matters, most churches don’t fail because they lack polish. They fail because they lack the training and support that gives them courage, endurance, and repentance.
I want to gather men with scars, men who have struggled and kept working faithfully. Men who can honestly share what it costs to stay true. I also want to create a space for these men to talk, learn from each other, and build strong bonds.
Finally, we’re seeing the early shape of a partner church network: East River, Little Miami Fellowship, and Silver City Church. No name. No budget. Just time together, a shared concern for our region, and a commitment to the same kind of faithful ministry.
These are the seeds. My hope is to see them grow into a strong and steady organic network of pastors and churches, rooted in their communities, united in purpose, and able to endure over time.
The Missing Piece
The missing piece is a network that can assess and support new church plants. Acts 29 lost its way. The PCA’s Mission to North America is deep in debt and has drifted into urban progressivism. Regardless of where we land denominationally, that void will remain.
Over the last five years, I’ve told more than two-thirds of the men or groups who’ve approached me about church planting not to do it. Some needed to reform where they were. Others needed to move. In nearly every case, it was clear they weren’t ready or suited for the work. And nearly every one of those efforts has since collapsed, split, or limped along in failure.
That’s not insight, it’s pattern recognition. You can see the cracks before they widen if you’re willing to look honestly.
Building a lasting movement means sending the right men for the right work. The assessment must be thorough, looking beyond academics or charisma. A man’s home tells you more about his ministry than his grades. His marriage and household are the best measure of his readiness to lead.
The kind of planters we’re looking for are steady men who are married with children, have some theological background, and real leadership experience. They have taken on responsibility, led others, faced setbacks, learned, and kept moving forward.
People enjoy stories about underdogs, but romanticism harms churches. We don’t need dreamers chasing an idea of ministry. We need shepherds who know how to face real challenges and keep going.
That’s not elitism. That’s stewardship.
Raising the Next Generation
I’m convinced the next wave of pastors will come from men in their late twenties and thirties who chose to marry, raise children, and work before pursuing ministry. That’s not compromise, it’s wisdom. These men already know what it costs to take responsibility.
The challenge is training them well without uprooting their lives for five years. A rigorous seminary like Greenville offers deep formation, but at a cost few can bear. I love the rigor; I hate the bottleneck.
We need more ways for men like this to get started, with programs that combine serious theology and practical flexibility. That’s what led me to look into Grimké Seminary. I wanted to find a model that lets men stay rooted in their homes and churches while preparing them to preach and lead well.
If a man can do the full traditional path, praise God. But the church needs more routes that maintain depth, discipline, and accessibility. We’re not lowering standards; we’re removing unnecessary barriers.
The Long View
Building a pipeline of pastors, men who can start new churches or renew existing ones in the Midwest, is how I plan to spend the next fifteen to twenty years of my ministry.
The last six years opened the world to me. Too much of it. From late 2021 to early 2023, I spread myself thin. Then God, in His mercy, brought me low and helped me see what mattered.
This is what matters: East River first. Local missions in the Midwest second.
That’s where I’ll spend my time, my strength, and my last good years of work.
Conclusion
We don’t need novelty. We need faithfulness. We need pastors who stay put, churches that endure, and believers who know their people and place. The Midwest doesn’t need spectacle. It needs stability.
If we preach, plant, and persevere, we can leave behind something solid: churches that will stand long after we are gone.
That’s the mission. That’s the hope.
May God give us the grace to do it.
Painting: “Gathered” by Tim Oliver
Pastor Foster, I just want you to know that your words here and over the last few years are so appreciated. There have been many times that I have been unable to articulate something to my husband and the very next day you post on it with exactly the right sentiment I was unable to find. Your faithfulness in Ohio is an encouragement as we work to build up our rural part of Southern Indiana.
I agree, with your overall assessment. I grew up PC(USA) on the mission field in the Horn of Africa. Discipleship wins the day, it’s just not over night. “The light that shines the brightest at home shines the furthest”. A church without a local mission, is it really a church? Or just another charitable organization? Loved the article