CARL JUNCTION – Pastor Rodney Rambo and his Carl Junction congregation, Rooted Church, has sent roughly 80 people Pittsburg, Kans., where they will help start a new church. The new church plant, named Radiant Church, is being formed from a team made up of nearly one-third of Rooted Church’s membership.
This process began in 2023, with Rambo realizing the congregation had both the need and the ability to plant a new church. When asked about some of the reasons for the church plant, Rambo responded, “It really starts with a church committing to prayerfully discerning God’s will for planting.” Besides the main need to have a heart for creating a church plant, he also listed praying for a planter and then raising up and training a core team to head the plant.
“Our church has had a heart for it for some time,” he said. “God was really growing our church through people that lived in Pittsburg, Kans. … In response to prayer, God began adding more people to that community in pretty large numbers. So that put us in a place where we understood that this is what God would have our church to do.”
Rambo shared other reasons for the move. There’s a well-known university in Pittsburg, so the city has a large student population, but not many options for church attendance for those students.
“There are less churches in Pittsburg than just about any other community around here,” Rambo said, “so we identified Pittsburg early on as a community really in need of a church plant.”
In 2022, Rooted Church started outgrowing the space in their building, and they began sharing a facility with First Baptist Church of Carl Junction. The two churches merged in September 2023.
“When our churches officially joined together, that was a big day for us, in terms of being a multiplying church,” Rambo said. He described how, once they came together, God quickly made it clear that they could make the church plant happen.
From the beginning of this process, Rambo and the whole church emphasized prayer, asking God to provide everything they need for the ministry.
“About a year and a half ago, we put some feelers out and were contacted by a planter,” Rambo said. “We sent him through the Send Network, and since that process, we were able to set up a year-long residency where he could come be at our church, and we could get to know him and work with him.”
After assessing him, they were able to move forward. Early in 2025, the congregation of Rooted “began identifying a core team for the new plant and working with them on a monthly basis to prepare that.” Rambo described how they worked out other small details as well, such as spending time this spring searching for a venue and gathering all necessary equipment.
On July 27, the church planting team’s last Sunday with Rooted, the lead planter was ordained as a pastor and the team as a whole was commissioned. They held two “preview Sundays” at Radiant Church’s new building, Aug. 3 and 10.
Perhaps the biggest question about the whole process is: How long will it take? According to Rambo, “It takes about three to five years for a church to really be able to stand on its own two feet in terms of no longer needing outside financial support or raising up your own leaders.” Rooted Church, he added, is prepared to continue supporting Radiant Church for a time, until they are firmly established.