- Church planting & multiplication
Right after worship on a recent Sunday, Tracy Crawford was in Food For Less, where he rarely shops.
While there, he got to know two young men who he learned were working for their grandmother. He deepened the conversation and found out they knew his son. Eventually, the moment was right to invite them to his church.
Embracing spontaneous opportunities as he did with those two men is normal. His jobs often meant sales calls and visits, all based on finding solutions through conversations with people.
"Most of what I did was out working with new people," he said. "I have conversations with everyone, everywhere, all the time. No matter what we're talking about, we will talk about Jesus."
Now, as the pastor of Tri-City Church in Rialto, California, he's making the most of every encounter to invite people to the new Converge church. The congregation launched in October 2022.
Related: Converge seeks more than 300 church planters by 2026. Learn more and pray.
This ministry is for those who've made mistakes — and know it.
Crawford, influenced by Ken and Paula Hemphill in their book Splash, practices vulnerability and connection when sharing the gospel. He owns and declares his past mistakes as a pathway for others to find God and be in his church.
He will tell his story to anyone and acknowledge that he would do things differently if he could.
"Our vulnerability helps people realize we are people," he said. "Sometimes people see church people as being too far out of reach. I never want to give that impression to anyone."
Related: World Shakers in Georgia asks the Lord to draw people who aren't churchy.
Part of his authenticity includes trusting them and being trusted enough by them to offer his life moments to another person. He grew up in church, he said, but the will of God didn't influence him as much in his youth as it could have.
"I knew Christ, but I wasn't committed to him," he said. "I was living recklessly, not focusing on what was right and wholesome."
In time, he changed the direction of his life, especially after the birth of his first child. Now, he lets others hear about his journey because he believes the story of his life belongs to God, not him.
"It's those stories that God used to shape me into who I am today," he added.
Rialto has room for a ministry like that
Crawford said the biggest challenge for a new church in his community is people who grew up in church but never understood discipleship. As a result, they don't understand the truth of the gospel or the way the Holy Spirit acts in the hearts and minds of believers.
"There are a lot of people who feel reached," he said. "But there are a lot of people who need to be reached."
Crawford said that most people in Rialto, a community of more than 100,000 near Los Angeles, Pasadena and San Diego, aren't in church on Sunday mornings.
"There are a lot of disenfranchised people," he said.
Some disconnected people are in that position because of church hurt, while others don't know Christ because they don't let people into their lives.
Related: Believe LA is a congregation helping isolated Californians find Christ in community.
Rialto includes long-time blue-collar and white-collar residents. Low-income, one-parent families live just a few miles from newer homes with well-off owners.
To get to work, many drive at least 45 minutes to other cities, but some travel as much as an hour and a half each way. A long drive like that means they can own twice the home for hundreds of thousands of dollars less.
Mindy Riley and her two sons live down the street from Tri-City Church. In September, people from the church invited her and her sons to church. Being able to walk to worship was a positive, so they visited one Sunday.
Since then, Riley and her children have become regular attendees. She said her son loves photography, so he brings his camera to every service and takes photos that the church can use for social media, promotions and other needs.
"He is excited every time," she said. "They gave him a purpose, a place to fit in and feel like he was doing something other than just being a body."
A circle of life for the church and the community to mutually benefit each other
Crawford hopes the Lord uses Tri-City Church to embrace people and build and strengthen the community around them. Acts 2, where a whole community is together and has everything in common, inspires him about how families and individuals can live together.
"When people come to the community, we want to present something much more friendly," he noted.
To accomplish that, the church has a lot of heavy community involvement to create a mutually beneficial connection with its neighbors. The church has joined the city with youth block parties, giveaways of food and school supplies in backpacks and Easter events with games, free food and egg hunts.
"Healthy communities produce healthy churches, and healthy churches produce healthy communities," he said. "The church doesn't belong to us, but it is in this community for them."
Related: A Wyoming church felt the same way so they built the community a mixed-use facility.
Staying ready to give the reason for hope
Crawford learned early in his life — but especially in his sales career and faith — that everyone has a problem.
In response, his desire was to be solution-focused so he could help people transform their lives. He wanted to understand their problems and co-create solutions with them.
Today, he's ready to make a connection so people have a shot at a new life, whether he's pulling in at his usual stops or meeting total strangers in a spot outside his regular route of life. Wherever the conversation starts, Crawford's thinking about the best outcome of all.
"I believe all people have a problem," he said. "Once you help a person understand that the long-term problem in life is sin, it makes it a lot easier to point them to the savior who makes it a lot easier to overcome sin."
Converge's 10 districts have committed to deploying 312 church planters before 2026. Read more inspiring church planting stories and learn about the goal to send out 312 church planters in five years.
