In 2005, Pastor Glenn D. Bone of Good Seed Ministries in Chicago was presented with the Church Health Award from Pastor Rick Warren and Purpose Driven Ministries. After that, Pastor Bone began traveling all over the country passionately teaching Purpose Driven principles to church pastors and leaders. Eventually he became one of five approved PD coaches.
One of the connections he made along the way was with Pastor A. B. Vines of New Seasons Church in San Diego. The pair originally met at a Purpose Driven Conference, and they reconnected in 2013 when Pastor Bone called him about implementing PD strategies in his church. By that time, Pastor Vines had three campuses in San Diego and hoped to plant more churches throughout the country.
The following year, Pastor Vines invited Pastor Bone to come out to California to speak at a leadership conference. While there, he showed Pastor Bone a new campus and encouraged him to move to San Diego so they could to do Kingdom work together. Although Pastor Bone and his wife, Carla, loved San Diego, they felt God wanted them to remain in Chicago.
Then something happened that was bigger than either of these pastors. Pastor Bone received an email from Saddleback Chief-of-Staff David Chrzan. He was inviting all former recipients of the Church Health Award to come to Rancho Capistrano for a meeting about PD and Saddleback’s decade of working through the PEACE Plan in Rwanda.
Pastor Bone attended the meeting, and returned again that fall for Purpose Driven PEACE training. This time, he brought Pastor Vines with him. Both were encouraged and wanted to get involved on a bigger scale. Shortly thereafter, Pastor Bone received confirmation from the Lord to merge Good Seeds Ministries in Chicago with the New Seasons staff. This led to the launch of a New Seasons Campus in Chicago.
Meanwhile, both pastors felt called to get involved in the PEACE Plan in Africa. “We both knew we wanted to be a part of the Purpose Driven PEACE Plan,” Pastor Bone says. “We were challenged at the meeting that there 32 countries in Africa that want churches to come into their countries and do what Saddleback has done for Rwanda.”
New Seasons Church committed to help take on this level of responsibility, and even sent a representative from the church to the All-Africa Summit in February 2016. Pastor Bone says they’re excited about the years ahead and that they’re in the early stages of strategic planning now. They will be working with congregations in Uganda and will begin with Purpose Driven training.
Helping bring PEACE to Africa is not the only commitment of New Seasons Church. They’ve committed to being a part of 52 new church plants in the next nine years, working with SEND North America in their effort to launch churches and impact communities. Pastor Bone is also committed to using Purpose Driven methodology and wants to make sure each church gets a personalized PD plan.
Currently a church with six campuses, New Seasons continues to grow, including their most recent plant in Albany, Georgia. Now that Good Seeds Ministries is part of the New Seasons family, they are determined more than ever to help build God’s Kingdom.
As Pastor Bone explains, “That’s why we’re going to do whatever it takes to get the message of Jesus to our urban communities in America and around the world.”
To learn more about becoming an International Partnering Church, visit pd.church/start.
New Seasons Church: A Purpose Driven Church Story, by Purpose Driven Church, is an article from Pastors.com. © 2012 Pastors.com.
