In one of the country’s fastest growing states, SendNC is walking alongside local churches to plant gospel-proclaiming churches like The Oaks Community Church, which launched in Alamance County this year. Since its kickoff service, the church plant has celebrated six baptisms.

The Oaks Community Church held its kickoff service Aug. 16 in the Holly Hill Mall and Business Center in Burlington, N.C. While shoppers browsed and walked past, pastor Mike Mitchener and a group of believers gathered to worship. 

The church had been holding public services at the mall since last fall. The mall hosts a few churches that use the building for meeting spaces in an effort by its owners to revitalize the property.

A few months later, The Oaks has grown to more than 50 weekly attendees and baptized six new believers, including a grandson of one of the launch team members, and his wife. This November, the church will move into permanent space, in what was formerly a Lutheran church in Gibsonville. The building hasn’t actually been a church for five years, after being purchased by an individual.

The Oaks is one of 32 church plants that launched in North Carolina this year, in partnership with SendNC. In one of the fastest growing states in the country, SendNC directs resources and support toward helping local churches plant churches in strategic communities with a gospel need and opportunity. North Carolina currently leads the United States in domestic migration. 

“We exist so that the lost are saved, the saved are sent, and the church is built,” said Mitchener about the mission of The Oaks.

For Mitchener and his wife, Stephanie, the launch marked a milestone in a long road toward a return to church planting.

Mitchener sensed the call to plant early last year, after 18 months of prayer, discernment and a season of transition for their family. From 2020 to 2023, they served a church in Virginia. In August 2023, the couple returned to Alamance County, where they raised their family and previously planted a church in 2000. That church remains an established congregation in the community today. 

For more than a year, Mitchener preached in various local churches, serving through pulpit supply and an interim role, while they sought clarity for their next steps in ministry. 

The couple heard one thing clearly: God was saying to them, “Don’t rush the waiting.”

In February 2025, Mitchener attended the Disciple-Making Conference in Raleigh, which he nearly backed out of. He said he almost made a U-turn, wanting to avoid comparing his uncertainty in ministry to what seemed like the success of others. 

“It wasn’t a revival type of atmosphere, but for me, it was a revival,” he ultimately said about the event.

Throughout that morning, he kept remembering God calling him to “make disciplers” more than 30 years ago. Mitchener says “disciplers” to signify multiplication in discipleship. 

When event leaders concluded the final session saying, “You are sent,” Mitchener heard his answer. 

“It was as if the Lord said, ‘Mike, go plant a church.’” 

From clarity to calling

Months before the Disciple-Making Conference, Mitchener had met SendNC Director Mike Pittman at a meeting of the Mount Zion Baptist Association. Pittman had “planted the bug” about church planting even then. 

Soon after the conference, the Mitcheners were connected to Seth Norris, pastor of Perkinsville Church in Boone, who was prayerfully leading the church to become a sending church. 

On April 30, 2025, the Mitcheners committed to plant a church locally, working with both SendNC and the Mercy Hill Collaborative, and with Perkinsville as their sending church. By August, they completed the SendNC assessment process. They went through 10 months of training, eventually building a core launch team.  

In the spring of 2025, the group began meeting at The Hive coffee shop in Gibsonville for a Sunday evening Bible study. Last fall, they moved to Holly Hill Mall for Sunday evening services, and weekly Sunday morning services began in May.

The population of The Oaks’ surrounding area represents at least 26 nations with seven distinct ethnic groups — four of which were present at the first August service. Mitchener hopes to see cultural diversity continue to grow among the congregation. 

“When I was a young man, I had to go to the nations to reach them,” he said. “The Lord has brought the nations here.”

His wife, Stephanie, has been part of the church planting journey from the beginning. She leads a women’s Bible study, oversees weekly service presentations, and invests in the next generation through discipling college students with Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

She said church planting is a “powerful way to reach new demographics and engage communities through relationships, outreach and service.”

“New churches can bring fresh opportunities for people to connect with a local body of believers and hear the truth of God’s Word through biblical teaching,” she said.

“Ultimately, church planting is about more than establishing a church or filling a building. It is about seeing the lost saved, the saved sent and the next generation reached with the gospel. … I believe church planting is one important way God is using His people to accomplish that mission throughout North Carolina.”

Through church planting, Stephanie has also repeatedly experienced God’s faithfulness through timely provision and the willingness of people to sacrificially serve in The Oaks’ ministry.

“He has continually provided for our every need, often in ways that remind us that this is His work, and He is leading the way,” Stephanie said. “Watching Him bring everything together has strengthened my faith and reminded me that we can trust Him with every step of this journey.”

Jordan Gealy oversees small groups at The Oaks and serves on the finance team. His involvement with the church plant has brought him out of his comfort zone, he said. 

“To serve in ways that I wouldn’t normally have served … really helps me connect with God in a way that I would’ve never known before,” Gealy said.

SendNC can resource every North Carolina Baptist Church in getting involved in church planting at different points of the process and in different ways. Learn more about becoming a supporting or sending church, or planting at sendnc.org. 

Next year’s Disciple-Making Conference will be in two locations: Feb. 18 in Raleigh and Feb. 25 in Arden. Registration opens Nov. 16.

By Liz Tablazon, N.C. Baptist Contributing Writer