When Shawn Rohrbach and his wife Erin were looking for a house to buy in Topton, their realtor showed them half of a twin house. “The man who lives in the other half of the twin is a pastor who is starting a new church in town,” the realtor said. Shawn and Erin had been looking for a new church to attend and asked the realtor more information. He got them in touch with the pastor who turned out to be Dan Hoffstetter, church planter and pastor of Redeemer BFC in Topton. Shawn and Erin met with Dan and started attending Redeemer just eight months after the church was launched.
Since then, Shawn has been a key member of Redeemer BFC in Topton. He is the Outreach Coordinator and runs the Celebrate Recovery program. Topton had a drug epidemic for many years which deeply affected the people in the town. A few people who attend Redeemer BFC came because of Celebrate Recovery.
Now, the church is in the beginning stages of planning to send out Shawn Rohrbach to be the church planting pastor for a daughter church from Redeemer BFC in Topton which itself is a daughter church from New Life Bible Fellowship Church in Oley, PA. Pastor Dan will be sharing more details about this plan with his congregation this coming Sunday during their congregational meeting although the vision for daughter church planting will not be a shock. Pastor Dan said, “the development and release of leaders, as well as planting new churches, have both been part of our vision since day one. As we continue to best use the rental space we have, we are excited to reach more people by first sending some to a new community for gospel work, and second, by freeing up space to reach new people at Redeemer. We have always wanted to be a church plant that is committed to planting new churches that will also plant new churches. And we are very excited to be able to do this so early on in our life by sending Shawn and others!”
At the moment, the basic plan is to bring Shawn in as a Church Planter in Residence, do demographic work to pick a location, then gather a core group for a fall of 2026 launch, but these are preliminary plans and Redeemer BFC is open to what timetable God has.
I asked Shawn what excites him about church planting. He said, “it’s exciting to build from the ground up and see how God works through it. I have a heart for the lost and want to go somewhere that people aren’t being reached. I want to love on people and share Jesus Christ with them.”
Shawn also said, “My goal is to have a church that is a place where people can be as vulnerable as they are in Celebrate Recovery. I don’t want people to have a mask on when they walk through the door of church. When someone walks in and says they are fine, sometimes I can tell from their face that they are not, then I ask them how they are really doing. I think the Lord gave me a gift to see the brokenness in people that others do not.”
Shawn also offered encouragement for other BFC churches to plant a daughter church. “You don’t have to wait for years to think about church planting. You can do it from the beginning. I’ll do the same from the daughter church we will plant. As soon as we have people and are getting going we will make plans for a daughter church.”
0 Comments