Four rural churches. One new ministry each. Two years to get it standing.
Ministry Mobilization is a working group for lay leaders in small western Pennsylvania churches who are ready to start something in their community and would rather not figure it out alone.
Cohort one runs September 2027 through June 2029. We start talking with churches in spring 2027.
Start a conversationFour things have to be true
If you can say yes to these, the rest is workable. If you can't say yes to the second one, wait for a season when you can.
- Your church wants to reach the people around it.You don't need a plan yet. Wanting to, and being honest that nothing has started, is enough.
- Someone other than the pastor will own the work.One or two lay leaders who will still be carrying it in year two. This is the whole design.
- You're within about an hour of Grove City.We meet in person, monthly, rotating among the churches and the college.
- You can give it one evening a month for two years.Plus the work between meetings. It is not a heavy load, but it is a long one.
How twenty-two months actually goes
Five phases. Nobody launches anything for the first year, and that's deliberate — most rural outreach fails on the front end, from starting before anyone knows what they're starting.
Recruiting runs the spring and summer before the cohort opens.
Recruit
We find four churches. Conversations, visits, and honest talk about whether the timing is right for you.
Envision
The cohort opens with a retreat — your pastor and your lay leaders together. Then four months of looking hard at your community, your congregation's real capacity, and what you're actually positioned to do. You leave with a written plan you believe in, not one handed to you.
Mobilize
Groundwork. Recruiting materials, promotion, whatever technical setup the ministry needs, and a way to bring volunteers in. Most churches have the will for this part and not the tools. Grove City students join here, while things are still being built.
Execute
It goes live. Summer interns give you real manpower through the opening months. After that it runs on your people, which is the point — a ministry propped up by outside labor hasn't been tested yet. Expect this stretch to be messy. Nobody goes through it alone.
Sustain
Keeping volunteers, telling the story, funding it, and naming who leads it next. You finish with a year of operating experience and a plan for the years after we stop meeting.
What it asks of you, and what comes with it
Your church brings
- One or two lay leaders, at every monthly meeting, for twenty-two months
- A pastor who comes to the opening retreat and stays behind the work
- Half the cost of a summer intern, about $1,000
- Hosting a monthly gathering once or twice
- The volunteers. This is the part nobody can do for you.
The cohort brings
- No participation fee
- Travel and meals covered for your leaders at every gathering
- The opening retreat, covered
- Monthly facilitation, plus consulting time with your church between meetings
- Hands-on help building your materials and technical setup
- Grove City students, and a paid summer intern
- Three other churches trying the same thing at the same time
Students are part of this, both directions
Grove City College's Plowshare program places students with local rural churches. They come to you for the second semester, stay through the summer as paid interns, and continue into the following school year.
You get consistent hands during the months when a new ministry is most fragile. They get something harder to arrange: a front-row seat while ordinary church members learn to lead something from nothing.
Who's running it
Mark Sentell has spent more than thirty years in bivocational rural ministry in western Pennsylvania — planting a church, handing it off, running hands-on outreach, and helping other congregations do the same. He's written a book of practical outreach ideas for churches trying to connect with people who aren't coming to them, and spent twenty years in business leadership before and alongside all of it.
He facilitates the cohort, consults with each church between meetings, and does the building work most small churches can't take on themselves.
If your church might be one of the four, say so early.
Cohort one takes four churches. The first conversation is just a conversation — what your community looks like, what you've tried, whether this is your season for it.
Start a conversation