Church Plants

Here at Parkway we began to get serious about church planting when God gave us the Vision to be involved in planting 10 churches during the 10 years from 2000-2010.

We knew that Church planting had proven to be one of the best methods for winning lost people to Christ in our world today and Pastor Jeff had been greatly influenced during his first pastorate in South Florida by a district superintendent named Jerry Rott. Pastor Jerry had planted multiple churches and had a passion for planting more. As Pastor Jerry mentored Pastor Jeff, the belief in the importance of planting new churches became a passion in Pastor Jeff's heart.

	Phillippine Church Plants

Our first planting opportunities came from Pastor Jeff's missionary brother-in-law who was involved in a great planting movement in the Phillippines. Tim Keep told Pastor Jeff about opportunities to build churches and support pastors in this planting effort. Parkway, without ever formally taking an offering, gave the money to build numbers of churches and has continued to support the pastors of a number of these churches.

	Moneta Church Plant: EastLake Community Church/Moneta,VA

Our first church plant in the US was EastLake Community Church located in Moneta, VA. A retiring minister, Rev. Clayton Leonard, donated a small church building to Parkway. PHOP closed the church down, remodeled it completely, hired two pastoral families and sent a total of 76 people to this church to re-plant it under a new name, leadership, etc.

God has done a great work at EastLake over the last four years and they are preparing to move into a new worship facility which will enable them to continue to grow. They are currently averaging 200 plus in Sunday morning worship in a building that will only seat about 115 people.

Pastor Troy Keaton is the Senior Pastor at EastLake.

	Hispanic Church Plant: La Mision Hispana/Roanoke, VA

In 2004-5 PHOP felt led to begin an outreach to the Hispanic community. God raised up Pastor Dave Calhoun, who speaks fluent Spanish and has a deep love for the Hispanic world, to lead this ministry. Dave and his wife Sybil began to offer English classes and then began a Sunday morning Bible Study. Eventually this group outgrew the facilities we had available on the PHOP campus and we rented them their own facility. Recently another Hispanic group merged with ours and we are ministering to about 75-100 Hispanics on a weekly basis.

	Salem Church Plant: Living Well Church/Salem, VA

In 2007, Pastor Steve Parker, who had formerly been the Pastor here at PHOP from 1993-2000, felt God's call to move back to the Roanoke Valley and help us plant a new church in Salem, VA. Pastor Steve came on staff here at PHOP for several months and took a group of about 50 people from PHOP and the surrounding area to help him plant this new church. The Nazarene church of Virginia provided a building for this plant and partnered with PHOP since Pastor Steve had been pastoring a Nazarene church in Indiana. Pastor Steve and his team are making inroads into the Salem community and we anticipate a great new move of God as a result of this plant. A core group of about 75-100 are carrying this young church forward.

	Richmond Church Plant: Grace Bible Church/Atlee, VA

In January of 2008, Dr. James Keaton, Sr. had retired to the Roanoke area but still had a burden to plant a church in the Richmond area where he has many relatives and friends. Dr. Keaton (Pastor Jeff's Father) met with PHOP and the two formed a partnership. Over the last two years Grace Bible Church has been building a foundation and recently they moved into a new 6500 sq. ft. facility that will enable them to launch forward at a new level. Momentum is building as their core group of about 50 people is beginning to see the possibilities of winning the lost to Christ in the Richmond area.