Why Hickory?
Why plant a church? And more particularly, you might ask, why plant a church in Hickory? We are planting CTK in Hickory because we see both tremendous need and wonderful opportunities in our community.
UNCHURCHED. A drive around town might not convince you that Hickory needs another church plant. It’s a veritable Baskin-Robbins of churches out there—try all 31 flavors of church! Yet the buildings don’t tell all of the story. A study in 2019 revealed that 11,676 of 16,883 households in our community were “unchurched.” That means that before the pandemic nearly 70% of our community did not have a meaningful relationship with a local church. Anecdotally, the number of people disconnected from meaningful gospel community seems to have only increased since the pandemic.
Our faith flourishes in community. To know Christ Jesus by faith means that we are united to him. As we are united to our Savior, we are also united to our fellow believers. The New Testament calls us to live out the reality of that union in a local congregation. Our life together in the church is for our good and for the glory of God.
UNREACHED. Hickory is also home to fourteen “unreached” people groups. These people groups are made up of less than 1% evangelical Christians. Many of these groups are made from people moving from around the world to make their home here in Hickory. Almost 10% of our town was born outside of the United States. As those who were spiritual strangers and aliens but who brought near through the blood of Christ (Eph 2:12-13), we want to declare and to display the love of Christ to all in our community. We pray that we might reach, disciple, and send some from among these peoples to the nations.
Consider four significant ways you could partner:
PRAY — Sign up for our newsletter and commit to praying regularly for CTK.
GIVE — Give financially to enable CTK to continue our gospel work in Hickory.
TELL — Tell others you know in the area about our work and invite them to join.
JOIN — Join us as we labor in the harvest to make Christ Jesus known across our community.
NEXT GENERATION. Hickory is home to about 7,300 college students at Lenoir-Rhyne University and Catawba Valley Community College. Appalachian State is opening a camps in Hickory this fall, and we understand that their hope is to one day have an enrollment of 5,000 here. As a former pastor of mine once said, the gospel must go forth both geographically and generationally.
PARTNERING IN THE GOSPEL. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and we at CTK would add that it takes a village to raise a church. We are only able to plant because of the generous and faithful partnership of many across our community and across our country. How might you be able to join CTK in this work of planting a new gospel-proclaiming church in Hickory?
