In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many people were coming out of student ministry excited about planting churches. One of them was Pastor Brian Bloye. After moving to Dallas, Georgia, in the summer of 1997, he planted West Ridge Church.
Five years later, the church had experienced some growth, but Bloye felt a strong call to shift West Ridge’s focus from church growth to kingdom expansion and church multiplication. And this change of vision took off in ways he never expected.
In 2003, West Ridge started a church planting residency program, and the following year, it launched The West Ridge School of Church Planting. Bloye hired Mac Lake in 2009 and together with several other churches, they started a national church planting network called LAUNCH Network of Sending Churches. They also built an assessment, training and coaching system that they gifted to the North American Mission Board in 2015.
Next came Engage Churches, started by Bloye to plant churches in Georgia and invest in the health and spiritual vitality of church planters and their spouses. In the state, 60–70 churches are working together to plant churches. They are divided into local networks all over the state, each consisting of six or seven churches. Together, they plant churches collectively as Engage Churches.
“A large church might invest in a church at one level, but a church of 100 could still invest at another level,” notes Bloye. “It’s not equal gifts but equal sacrifice.”
West Ridge focuses on raising up the next generation from within the church to send out and either be church planters or serve as part of a church planting team. For example, in 2022, the church’s executive pastor, his wife and 10 church members moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to launch Take Hold Church. In 2024, West Ridge planted Heirloom Church in Kyle, Texas. And the plan is for their young adult pastor, along with 25–30 young adults, to move to Chamblee, Georgia, to launch Kingdom City Church this September. It will be the 125th church West Ridge has helped launch since 1998.
Bloye maintains that if you are a church plant, multiplication needs to be part of your church’s DNA from Day 1. “As you move into a city, you need to go with the mindset that you’re going to engage the community and make disciples. Out of that you’re going to plant a church. Oftentimes we get that order reversed.”
He also suggests that older churches partner with a church plant. “I’ve watched this happen time and again. Churches that have been around for 50 to 100 years get involved with a church plant, and it breathes life into them.”
Nationally, West Ridge Church is connected to The Send Network. Bloye, who also serves as the vice president of strategies and development for Send, develops pathways in church planting outside of traditional methods, such as college planting through The Salt Network, which is a family of churches that partners together to plant churches in major university centers.
There is also co-vocational church planting where a person doesn’t have to leave their job to plant a church. Brad Brisco, a member of Bloye’s team, has developed an assessment training for this pathway. Bloye suspects many more churches will be planted in North America because of it.
“I think God is calling us to focus our minds on expanding his kingdom,” he says. “If you keep your heart open to using your skill set, you can be a valuable part of a church planting team.”
Bloye has watched this happen with more than 1,000 people at West Ridge. “I get more excited about watching people go out than I do about big attendance Sundays. As pastors our focus should be helping people live out the mission that God has called them to and the purpose he’s created for them.”