English
Korean
Spanish
‘It’s a special call’
Before 2025 concludes, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention anticipates planting more churches—70—than in any other year in its history. While that’s a number worth celebrating, the need to plant churches is as urgent as ever. Jason Crandall, who earlier this year was named director of Send Network SBTC—the church planting partnership between the SBTC and the North American Mission Board—recently spoke to the Texan about what excites him about church planting, why Texas has unique needs that can be met by more churches being planted, and how churches of any size can become part of the planting movement.
As you step into this new role as director of Send Network SBTC, what are some of the things that excite you?
Jason Crandall: I’m most excited about what we’ve already seen happen—more than 200 church plants in the last three years since the partnership began, and I’m excited about those numbers continuing to increase. We continue to see more churches getting involved in church planting and sending guys into our process to go plant churches. Our pipeline is already looking full heading into next year.
I’m also really excited about what’s happening through the Missions Mobilization group here at the SBTC. I really love the idea of M-Link [a tool that matches churches looking to serve one another] helping potential supporting churches come on board with our church plants to develop greater partnerships. A lot of times there’s a willingness of churches to help, but they don’t necessarily know what to do or who they match up with. That’s one of the things I love about M-Link, that it can match a church that can do X, Y, and Z to a church plant that needs X, Y, and Z.
What are some of the unique needs in Texas that can be addressed through more churches being planted?
Crandall: Texas is exploding in population. You can look anywhere in almost any of our major cities—and really, even in our non-major cities—and see they’re pushing dirt everywhere. You’re seeing subdivisions go up like crazy. Businesses are coming in. Texas is still booming. When we began talking about this Send Network SBTC partnership back in 2021, there were 29 million people in the state. Now there are almost 31 million people, and what that means is there is so much more lostness here.
The world is moving here. International populations from all over are coming to Texas, and they’re in need of international church plants that speak their language. We’ve seen a huge uptick in that in 2025. We need to make sure there are churches here that are going to bring the gospel to them.
Your church, CityView Church in Pearland, is a plant that has been part of starting 14 churches over the past 12 years. Why has that been such an integral part of your church’s ministry?
Crandall: It kind of goes back to our founding. We’re specifically a Houston-based church, and we saw how fast Houston was growing and asked ourselves, “If we grew a megachurch in Pearland, how is that going to affect the city of Houston?” The answer we landed on was that a megachurch in Pearland does nothing, but a church that multiplies and plants churches can put churches all over that area. Those churches can embed into those local areas and become flourishing gospel congregations. CityView is a church of about 150 on a good Sunday. On Easter, we might hit 200. But the Lord has been gracious to allow us to see through those churches we’ve planted over 3,000 people worshiping on a regular basis. And some of those churches have also planted churches. By God’s grace, we’ve seen something beyond what we could ever ask, think, or imagine.
How can any church become a sending church?
Crandall: Any church can do this. One of the things I love doing in terms of mobilization is something called a Sending Lab. A Sending Lab is a one-day workshop where a church comes in and we help them figure out how to craft a sending vision. Most churches don’t realize it, but they already have 50, 60, 70% of what’s needed to plant a church.
I like to say it like this: Every church can be involved in church planting, but not every church can be involved in church planting in exactly the same way. Sometimes that means the best thing you can do is be a cooperating church where you’re giving regularly and generously through the Cooperative Program. Sometimes you can become a supporting church. A supporting church is one that’s going to come alongside a church plant and help it—whether that’s through prayer, giving, going, or in some other way. As you do that, you develop a relationship with a church planter and get to know him and then you may want to see your church get involved in a deeper way.
I firmly believe every church needs to be involved in multiplication, and every step of the way, you’re looking for whatever that next step may be for your church.
What would you say to the pastor who thinks he may be called to plant?
Crandall: I’d say do it! I say that jokingly just because we need more. We need to plant churches everywhere for everyone. If we’re planting 160 churches a year, we might be able to keep up with the growth rate of Texas over the long haul. But for the pastor considering planting, I would say talk to another church planter. Give me a call—I’m happy to talk to you. Talk to one of our local catalysts. We want to hear from you, and we want to help you figure it out and discern that call because it’s a special call.
To connect and find out more about church planting, email jcrandall@namb.net.
