“Cleveland needs people who love Jesus,” said Dan Ghramm, a North American Mission Board church planter in West Cleveland. Among the 65,000 people in the area where he works, Ghramm says there are “less than 300 to 400 people in a Gospel-preaching church on Sunday morning.”

CLEVELAND, Ohio (BP) — A church planting renaissance is on the horizon in an unlikely locale. Southern Baptists in Cleveland believe they’re on the edge of something big — a church planting movement that could change the city.

But they’ll need Southern Baptist partners from elsewhere to see it come to fruition.

“Cleveland needs people who love Jesus,” said Dan Ghramm, a North American Mission Board church planter in West Cleveland. Among the 65,000 people in the area where he works, Ghramm says there are “less than 300 to 400 people in a Gospel-preaching church on Sunday morning.”

The numbers don’t get better in other places in metro Cleveland. Forty-two percent of Clevelanders aren’t affiliated with a religious body — Christian or otherwise. Only 5.5 percent are in evangelical churches, compared to almost 40 percent in the state of Mississippi.

Despite the fact that Southern Baptists have been involved in Cleveland since the 1950s, there are only eight Southern Baptist churches within the city limits — or one SBC church for every 53,000 people. Five of those churches are less than five years old. Include the population and churches for all of Cuyahoga, Lake and Geauga counties, and that’s one SBC church for every 42,500 people.

Southern Baptists in Cleveland and throughout North America are working together to change that through Send North America: Cleveland — an effort to reach the metro area by connecting church planters with established churches in other parts of the nation.

Send North America is the North American Mission Board’s national strategy to mobilize and assist individuals and churches to get involved in hands-on church planting in 29 major cities and other areas throughout the continent. Through Send North America, NAMB will come alongside Southern Baptist churches that are not directly involved in church planting and help connect them to a church plant. And NAMB will partner with Southern Baptist churches already planting churches to help them increase their efforts.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available.]