Our Story

Plant 616 was sparked out of the friendship of a group of church planters in West Michigan. We loved our city. We loved the church. And we longed to see the church mobilized to engage every crack and crevice of the 616 area code with the Gospel. While we began dreaming about more church plants, we soon realized that what we needed was a city-wide collaborative movement fixed on our common mission. We have on Lord, a common mission, and we share the same region. We are seeing the fruit of city-wide movements all around the country and want to see the same here in West Michigan. Why not here? Why not now?

We are facing the greatest decline of the American church under our watch. Many of our churches are designed for a world that is slowly fading away. The majority of our churches are positioned to reach that shrinking 50% of our culture that has some culturally christian memory. To reach the growing 50% of our post-Chrisian culture we need to begin thinking like missionaries. Our historically churched-city needs a fresh mobilization of disciples who seek the lost and multiply churches.

In our fragmented world it is of necessity that we come together as the body of Christ. There is no singular church, network, or denomination that can complete the mission on their own. A collaborative city-reaching movement in our region has significant potential for missional impact. Plant 616 seeks to catalyze a movement of missional disciples and churches who own the mission of Gospel Saturation in our own backyards.

Movements like these grow through Kingdom-minded prayer & Kingdom-minded friendships. That means we move at the speed of relationships. We have been growing this collective of missionary disciples, churches, and ministry leaders over the past couple years. We would love for you to link arms with us!

Join the Movement:

Moving from Consumption to Contending

Moving from Maintenance to MULTIPLICATION

Moving from Competition to Collaboration

We are actively growing the movement. We would love to sit down and share more! Let’s Talk

Our Values

Jesus-Centered Renewal: Jesus is our Leader, Lord, Savior, Shepherd, and Guide. The church needs to be continually renewed after the image of her Founder. He is our salvation, our power, our rallying point, and our city’s only hope.

The Local Church: We love the local church. The church is the nexus of disciple-making, christian community, and the key agent in the mobilization and sending out of missionary disciples. Our goal is to help and serve the local church.

Disciple Mobilization: Disciple Multiplication is our most central task. Yet, it isn’t enough to make static disciples to manage our institutions, we must mobilize Jesus-centered and community-forged disciples who are focused on mission.

Everybody Gets to Play: If we want to reach every kind of person in our city, we must mobilize every kind of person in our churches. We aren’t cogs in the machine, we are members of Christ’s body called to discover our unique calling in God’s Kingdom.

Missional Adventure: The church isn’t made to sit in safety, nestled in cloistered enclaves. Jesus calls us to step out and embed ourselves in every crack and crevice of the city. A key piece of spiritual formation comes in stepping out into risky spaces for the sake of the mission.

Friendship: We are better together. We aren’t competitors, we are kingdom collaborators. Relationships are the fuel of movements, so we encourage collaboration and friendships on teams and between churches across the city.

Remember the Poor: People and places overlooked by this world are not overlooked by God. Kingdom values insist we prioritize distressed and neglected communities. The poor aren’t merely targets of our ministry, they are fully engaged agents of kingdom transformation.

Diverse Kingdom Ecosystem: Large and small churches. Urban and suburban neighborhoods. Each voice has value, each expression has its place, and every crack and crevice in our geography needs disciples committed to loving their place with the love of Jesus.