[The following blog was originally posted on the NAMB.net blog.  Click here to see the original post.]

AARON HARVIE NAMED CHURCH PLANTER MOBILIZATION STRATEGIST AT SOUTHERN

By Adam Miller
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In a strategic partnership with the Kentucky Baptist Convention (KBC) and the North American Mission Board (NAMB), The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary will house the new role of church planter mobilization strategist at its Louisville campus.
Aaron Harvie, a NAMB church planter in Philadelphia, will fill this new role August 1. As CPM strategist, Harvie will work closely with seminary faculty, with Kentucky Baptists and with NAMB to better equip and connect would-be church planters with strategies and contacts for partnering with existing churches to plant in key areas of North America.
“This will provide us with someone working with our staff in close partnership who will help us take advantage of opportunities and elevate church planting among our pastors,” said Paul Chitwood, executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. “Aaron has pastored in Kentucky, he’s been a successful church planter and has had a lot of success working with NAMB. It seems like the perfect fit and will help create an environment of church planting among our staff and in our convention.”
Aaron Coe, vice president of mobilization at NAMB, says this is an opportunity to put an experienced planter and strategist where he can have a broader influence.
“We’re excited to see how God uses this new role to turn students and churches toward penetrating lostness through evangelistic, multiplying church planting all over North America,” said Aaron Coe, vice president of mobilization at NAMB. “Aaron Harvie is a proven leader and mentor. I’m very grateful for Paul Chitwood of the Kentucky Baptist Convention and the leadership of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for helping us develop this key position."
Harvie planted Riverside Community Church in 1999, and the 13-year-old congregation has since multiplied into four church plants in the Philadelphia area. During his work in the northeast, Harvie learned the value of mentorship, partnership and a multiplying mindset. These practices are some of what he hopes to build into the DNA of planters and existing churches as they partner for new works.
Harvie says his new role will give him a chance to do more of what God allowed him to do during his years in Philadelphia.
“I went to Philly with the dream of planting one church, but God had plans for multiple churches,” said Harvie. “Since then we’ve had the opportunity to plant four other churches and three out of the four were started by staff from our church.
“Taking someone and over time developing them and preparing them to plant has been one of the greatest experiences in my ministry,” he added. “What’s crazy is that every one of these guys came on staff not with the intention to be planters but over time this desire to plant grew in them.”
But it takes more than a mentoring planter and a dream, said Harvie.
“Without partners there’s no planting,” said Harvie. “The partner is not just about money. It’s about prayer support, it’s about mentoring. Planters need the wisdom of tenured pastors.”
The seminary-based Church Planter Mobilization Strategist also will work closely with faculty to develop church planters through a mentorship process.
“I am thrilled that Southern Seminary is partnering with the North American Mission Board and the Kentucky Baptist Convention to train and mobilize the next generation of church planters,” said Russell Moore, senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Seminary “Aaron Harvie, as a proud Southern Seminary alumnus and a veteran church planter, has the wisdom and the energy to coordinate this new pilot project in a way that will spark untold energy.”
“I’m going to Southern as a practitioner knowing whom I’m looking for and how to get them ready. Through Send North America, I have effective places to send them,” said Harvie. “I’m looking for those whom God has called, and I’m ready to help equip them to plant churches that penetrate lostness and bring people into a relationship with Jesus.”
Adam Miller is a writer for the North American Mission Board.