Pastor Casey Lute and his wife, Kelly, welcome people to the first service of Peace Bible Church, Salem, Ore.
This year Bethany Baptist Church, Salem, Oregon, has been working toward planting a new church. On October 1, those efforts came to fruition as the new church—Peace Bible Church—held its first worship service in central Salem.
Pastor Casey Lute preached on the Biblical concept of peace, beginning a monthlong series on the subject. The city of Salem, he points out, derives its name from the Hebrew word shalom, meaning “peace.”
That first worship service “comes after a long process of preparation,” Casey says. “After spending all of 2023 focusing on building a core team, the church was sent off by Bethany Baptist in the morning service on September 24.”
Casey says one lesson he learned while helping plant Peace Bible Church is the “value in being connected to people and networks.”
In an interview that will be published in the Winter 2024 Baptist Bulletin, Casey told Clare Jewell, director Generate, “Many of the church plants I was aware of never stuck, and the one consistent thing among them was they all worked independently. I committed early on to our church being well connected and well networked.”
Last May, Generate gave the church a grant to assist in the church-planting process.
Tim Baker, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, is thankful not only for Generate but also for the Baptist Network Northwest, “which started as a church-planting fellowship,” he says in the interview. “There’s great teamwork within this Regular Baptist family to help us start a church.”
Casey says he and the church family are “looking forward to seeing how God uses this new work to bless our city.”
