Blog | TN Valley Presbytery

Church Planting Blog

Building Expansion, Spiritual Growth, and Cultural Education Continues at Woodlands Gathering

As the Woodlands Gathering community grows, the church is improving their building and continues to offer cultural education...

Like Adopting a Teen: Erik McDaniel Talks Church Revitalization

Erik and Maggie McDaniel’s family of six children includes one they adopted as an infant, three siblings they adopted as kids, and...

Karen Ellis Talks Persecution, Trials, and Christian Endurance

Karen and Carl Ellis with students at the Edmiston Center Karen Ellis, a student and professor of Christian Endurance Studies, is the...

Tennessee Valley Presbytery Leaders Ponder "The Great Dechurching"

“For the first time in eight decades that Gallup has tracked American religious membership, more adults in the United States do not...

Retreat Offered Rest and Encouragement to Small Town/Rural Pastors

This July, Corey Pelton hosted Rural Church Development’s first Small Town Pastor’s Retreat for pastors who are ministering in small...

Coaching, MNA, and TVP

“A good coach is trained to come alongside rather than tell you how to do things. Ministry is demanding and exhausting, but a good coach..."

Evangelistically Fruitful Churches in the PCA

David Gentino visited the Tennessee Valley Presbytyery’s Church Planting Network gathering on April 30th to talk about evangelistically...

Rural Church Development News: Podcasting Adventures, Adopting Rural Towns, and More

Coinciding with his unconventional ministry setup, Corey Pelton, leader of Rural Church Development (RCD) in north Georgia, likes to...

TVP’s Mission to North America Committee Welcomes New Members

Each presbytery has a committee of local leaders who report to Mission to North America (MNA). The Tennessee Valley Presbytery designated...

One Water, Many Bowls: Tony Thomas Discusses Cross-Cultural Ministry with Church Planters

“We are offering Christianity in a Western cup and India rejects it. But when we offer the water of life in an Eastern bowl, then our...

Christ Covenant Knoxville’s Church Planting Residency

Seth Hammond, lead pastor at Christ Covenant PCA in Knoxville, is leading a group of men through NXTGEN Pastor’s cohort model as part of...

Parakaleo: Supporting the Women and Wives of Church Planting

par-ak-al-eh'-o para: beside/alongside kaleo: call In our December email series, we briefly touched on the Tennessee Valley Presbytery’s...

Manipulation vs. Ministry: Jim Coffield Speaks into Emotional Intelligence for Church Planters

At the end of January, Jim Coffield joined our presbytery’s Church Planting Network quarterly gathering to discuss emotional intelligence...

Support the TVP's Church Planting Network

Because of faithful donors like you, our presbytery is able to support and equip our pastors for long-term health in ministry. Through...

Learning from the Locals

In his ministry to the rural areas and small towns of North Georgia and Southeast Tennessee, Corey Pelton has practiced learning about...

The PCA’s Church Planting Strategy

At our presbytery’s August Church Planting Network Gathering, Chris Vogel spoke about national trends in church openings and closings and...

New Members, Milestones, and Maturity at Redeemer Athens

I knew I needed to just preach the Bible, because people didn’t want to read and discuss other books about the Bible - they wanted...

Meet Tyler Majors: Pastoral Intern at Lakeway Presbyterian

This June, Tyler Majors became Lakeway Presbyterian’s first pastoral intern. The Morristown, TN church is led by planting pastor Chris...

The Story of Christ Church

This month marks two years that Christ Church Presbyterian has been meeting for Sunday morning worship. The plant was started by Covenant...

Moving from the Mountain to Mosaic

Until joining Mosaic, Corby served as associate pastor at Rock Creek Fellowship on Lookout Mountain, GA. Corby and his wife, Rachel, have...

Corby Shields Joins Mosaic Fellowship

As you may recall from our previous newsletter, Mosaic Fellowship in Chattanooga, TN has been going through a leadership transition. We...

Testimonies From Two Churches

“We’ve been in Athens for about 16 years and consider ourselves Baptists, but we had a difficult time finding a Bible-centered church...

Church Planting Network Seeks to Support Pastors

Now that Travis Vaughn has joined the Tennessee Valley Presbytery as the executive director of church planting, he is working to build...

Cartecay Gathering Forms in Ellijay, GA

Through Corey Pelton’s Rural Church Development work, he’s had the opportunity to help a gathering of believers form in Ellijay, GA....

Two Leadership Transitions

We'd like to let you know that two churches in the TVP church planting initiative - one that has particularized and one that is still in...

Only God Who Gives the Growth

According to an article published by Barna Group a little over a year ago, “Even amidst the pandemic, church planting remains a priority...

Woodlands Gathering Launches Worship & Preserves Native Culture

After several years of outreach, events, and Bible studies, Woodlands Gathering officially launched Sunday morning worship on November...

The Lord’s Provision Throughout 2022

We are thankful for God's provision and care in 2022 among TVP's church planters, elders, and core groups. He is faithful. We hope the...

“Every dawn brings a stronger recognition that I am new in Christ.”

“What a joy it has been to first visit and then become a member at Grace Presbyterian Church. I have become immersed in the Word of God...

Redeemer Athens Launches Sunday Morning Worship

In less than a year since Curt Stapleton and his family moved to Athens, TN, Redeemer Athens reached the point of holding Sunday morning...

Gospel Moves Forward in Ooltewah: Grace+Peace Particularizes

On August 21, 2022, Grace+Peace celebrated their particularization service. It was clear that God had raised up the right men at the...

The Story of Grace+Peace

The first time Benjie Slaton, pastor of Grace+Peace, visited Ooltewah in 2018, he wanted to figure out just what the community of...

Introducing Matthew Bryant: Fundraising for Church Planting

From Jason Coffey Friends, it is an exciting time for the TVP Church Planting Movement. As we continue to work toward planting twenty...

Rural Church Development: Growing Roots

In the last six months, Corey Pelton has been hard at work building connections in the rural areas of north Georgia, western North...

Will Davis: A Young Pastor’s Story

Part of Corey Pelton’s work is to come alongside the pastors who are already leading churches in rural areas, whether they are...

Equipped for Ministry: Brad and Beth McRee

One part of a pastor’s job is to equip the congregation to serve each other and to be salt and light in the community. Brad and Beth...

Planting Seeds in Athens, TN

Redeemer PCA Athens is continuing to build their foundation so they can join God’s work of reaching the lost in Athens and restoring the...

Welcome Travis Vaughn, New Executive Director

We are excited to introduce Travis Vaughn as the presbytery’s new Executive Director of Church Planting. Travis comes to us from Atlanta...

Revitalization in Action: Grace Presbyterian in Jasper, TN

Grace Presbyterian Church in Jasper, TN entered a new season of growth with help from the presbytery’s revitalization program. Erik...

Revitalization & Planting Go Hand-in-Hand

When the Tennessee Valley Presbytery began developing our current church planting strategy, we also took time to assess the need for...

Thankful for Our Supporters: We Surpassed Our 2021 Goal!

By the Lord’s provision, we not only reached our 2021 financial goal of $415,000, but we surpassed it. The Lord used the generosity of...

A Physical Home for Woodlands Gathering

We are excited to announce that Woodlands Gathering closed on a new worship space in October 2021. (If you’re unfamiliar with Woodlands,...

“We want our kids to know and be known by the church.” – Brent and Hannah Fiddler

This past summer, Benjie Slaton, planting pastor of Grace + Peace Church, hosted a study on baptism. Through selected readings, monthly...

Two New Initiatives: Reaching Athens, TN and Rural Appalachia

We are extremely pleased to introduce Curt Stapleton and Corey Pelton. Both pastors are raising funds and preparing to head to the field...

A Year in Review

The Lord has been incredibly faithful to our church plants this year. As we’ve stepped out in faith, seeking to follow His will, He has...

Celebrating a Milestone: Restoration Southside Particularized

When a church plant particularizes, officially leaving behind its young, beginning stages and becoming a fully-functioning,...

God is at Work in Morristown

Located between Knoxville and Johnson City, Morristown is one of the many small towns scattered through East Tennessee. As a larger,...

The Beginnings of a Church Plant

While every church plant has a unique story, a similar process goes into each Tennessee Valley plant. From initial prayers to finding a...

God’s Faithfulness to Mosaic Fellowship

In March 2020, a group of 40 adults planned to gather for the first core group meeting of a new church plant. This happened to be the...

God Is at Work: Testimonies From Woodlands Gathering

Greg Baney, church planting pastor at Woodlands Gathering, has seen God working in the hearts of Native American people through the...