Dave & Beth Wirka, church planters in Wahoo, Nebraska
Part of our vision in the Citylight Family is to be a church planting movement. We have identified ten strategic cities across the Midwest to plant churches. We believe that new Gospel movements in these ten hub cities will serve as catalysts for the multiplication of hundreds of new churches and tens of thousands of new disciples over the coming years. This typically is termed as a “hub and spoke” model.
The “hub and spoke” model is defined as “a central “hub” church that provides leadership, administrative support, and theological training to multiple smaller, localized “spoke” congregations or ministries. This strategy optimizes resource sharing while allowing individual spokes to maintain their unique community focus.” We have seen this already within our Family of churches. A few examples have been:
Citylight Council Bluffs helped plant spoke churches in West CB and Emerson, Iowa
Citylight Fort Collins helped plant a spoke church in Greeley, Colorado
Citylight Omaha helped plant spoke churches in Citylight Bennington, Mosaic, and Harbor Church in Sarpy County
Citylight Lincoln has helped plant spoke churches in South Lincoln and North Lincoln. Those spoke churches have helped plant Citylight Greenwood and now in Wahoo, Nebraska.
Planting a Spoke Church in Wahoo, NE
The past four years, a City Group led by people who attend Citylight Family churches in Lincoln, Yutan and Omaha have been meeting in Wahoo. Two of the leaders are Dave and Beth Wirka. The Wirka’s, along with the members from their City Group, are now faithfully stepping out and planting a church in the next year or so. David said, “It’s been amazing to watch God move in Wahoo. The growth we’ve seen in our City Group is now leading towards planting a church.”
Because of their relationship with Citylight North Lincoln, Lincoln, Omaha and other spoke churches, they have been given collaboration, training, support, prayer and resources as they prepare to launch. With the help and support of hub churches, and spoke churches, a church plant has a better chance to become established and then multiply more spoke churches. This is healthy and intentional church planting.
Spoke Church Planting Cohort
Are you serving at a Citylight Family church and want to plant a spoke church? Do you have a heart for rural communities? We want to help and support you. There is a group of pastors in our Family who meet on a regular basis to discuss, support and plan “spoke church planting.” The goal is to formalize this so that intentional planning, strategy and execution can occur for those who want to plant a church but not necessarily in one of the Family’s target ten hub cities.
Erick Whigham, co lead pastor at Citylight Council Bluffs and a member of the informal cohort, described the goal as, “Our Family of churches is involved in multiplying disciples and churches. If our Family’s goal is to multiply churches and a leader or pastor in our Family is not planting in a target ten hub, the question sometimes is can you still plant churches? The answer is of course, yes! Let’s do “spoke work.” You have a part to play and we want to encourage them. Another thought is when a church is planted and they are thriving and multiplying disciples. Most times, they are like “We are planted! Great! Now what?” We want to help them lead a church planting movement in their community.”
For more information on joining and supporting planting a church in Wahoo, Nebraska >>> dwirka@gmail.com
For more information on planting a spoke church in the Citylight Family >>> communications@citylightfamily.org