Meet the Send Network leaders empowering Arizona church plants

Behind every Arizona Mission Network church plant are Southern Baptist churches that give through the Cooperative Program (CP).

And through the North American Mission Board’s Send Network, Brian Hook, Jesse Powell and Kyle Rosas are helping to plant those new churches around Arizona.

Brian Hook is the Send City missionary for Phoenix and the senior pastor of Aspire Church in Tucson, which he planted.

Hook works with local pastors and congregations who want to plant churches by leveraging their resources and establishing church planting teams. He also helps pastors outside of Arizona who desire to be a part of the planting effort here.

“We’re finding more pastors who know Phoenix is a large, fast-growing city and want to spread the gospel,” he said.

One of the challenges Hook sees with church planting in Phoenix is a disconnectedness with methodologies.

“We need to realize God’s church is multifaceted because His wisdom is multifaceted,” Hook said.

Jesse Powell is a church planting catalyst and the church planting state lead with Send Network Arizona. His team provides assessments, training, coaching and care for church planters’ families.

Powell said that while most people in Arizona aren’t believers or church members — unlike a lot of other major cities — Phoenix residents are not antagonistic toward Christianity.

“People in Arizona are open to having conversations about their faith even if they aren’t religious or believers,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who are curious and open to exploring matters of faith.”

Kyle Rosas is also a church planting catalyst. He emphasizes the urgency of missionary work on our soil.

“Right now, the U.S. is the fourth biggest lost nation,” he said. “We’re number two globally in church decline. Most people in our country are not Christians. This is why many church plants are so evangelistic right now. What’s in front of you is a city that desperately needs the gospel.”

Vital to all of this is the Cooperative Program.

“Our seminaries, associations, state convention, NAMB, IMB — all of these agencies working together cannot happen without CP,” Hook said. “If we see all the resources at our disposal, we can see where these church plants are and meet their needs.”

As church plants establish a core of people, they aren’t supported by tithes and offerings.

“But they can be supported by CP,” Powell said. “Southern Baptist churches should celebrate new church plants because (established churches) played a role in this.”

Through the Cooperative Program, we can do more together than we can alone.

“Because of faithful SBC churches all across our country giving to CP, we can do ministry in a way that impacts the kingdom,” Rosas said. “Because at the front lines is church planting.”

Claudia Macdonald, a freelance writer living in Phoenix, is a member of First Southern Baptist Church at Sahuaro Ranch, Glendale.