Someone might think only a large church can plant another church. But First Baptist Church, Spring Valley, California, has fewer than 120 members and has planted several churches. Churches don’t need to get bigger before they plant a new church. And they don’t need more resources or more leaders or more money. The only necessity to plant a church is faith.

Planting Churches By Faith

Like many churches, First Baptist started out supporting missionaries worldwide through its Missions Faith Giving. RJ Cabugwas, pastor of First Baptist, began contributing to this fund in 1998. At that time, he was completing an internship at the church as a student of Baptist Bible Seminary and Institute, Manila, Philippines. In the years that followed, his desire to give by faith became a desire to plant by faith.

In 2009, RJ shared this passion with his congregation. He gave the congregation a faith-stretching challenge: to allocate part of the church’s general fund to plant a church.

The next year First Baptist started its first church plant, Grace Baptist Church in Santa Rita, Pampanga, Philippines. After only three years, this church had become a thriving congregation.

In 2013, many people who spoke Spanish began attending First Baptist, with the majority driving thirty minutes to the church every Sunday. RJ felt burdened for cross-cultural ministry, specifically reaching out to the Spanish-speaking community of the church’s area of San Diego.

“God brought a Hispanic pastor into our church who was searching for a ministry,” RJ says. That pastor, Arturo Rodriguez, started a Spanish language service at First Baptist.

In 2016, Arturo planted a church in San Marcos, California, where most of his congregation lived. Once again, First Baptist’s simple act of faith birthed another church, Primera Iglesia Bautista. But that move left the remaining Spanish-speaking members at First Baptist without a pastor.

That same year, God brought Benjamin Galan to pastor the Spanish language congregation at First Baptist. He organized those members into a church called Iglesia Bautista De Spring Valley, meeting at First Baptist. Sharing First Baptist’s passion to plant churches, Benjamin joined RJ in challenging both First Baptist and Iglesia Bautista to plant more churches.

As a result of that challenge, these two churches started a church in Bryant, Arkansas, in 2019. Benjamin’s parents, Oscar and Bessy Galan, began the new church, Iglesia Bautista La Gracia, and still serve there as pastor and wife. First Baptist also reached out to Generate, the church funding arm of Regular Baptist Ministries, for help. Generate gave the church a grant to help with the costs of operating the church.

In early 2020, RJ reconnected with a former seminary classmate, Venone Bihag, from the Philippines. Venone, a pastor in Canada, wanted to start a church in Saskatchewan, and First Baptist wanted to help. The congregation included this church in its general fund, and Generate helped with a church planting grant. The church began in August 2020.

In June 2022, Benjamin Galan went on a missions trip to Durango, Mexico. When he returned, he told First Baptist about a thriving ministry there. First Baptist partnered with Emilio Valdivia, a pastor in Durango, to help him plant Iglesia Tierra Nueva. And once again Generate stepped in to help with a grant to launch this church. RJ, Oscar and Bessy Galan, and a team from First Baptist attended its dedication service on September 4, 2022.

In July 2023, First Baptist took another step of faith to help a church planter in the Dominican Republic. With much prayer and the help of the church body, First Baptist expanded its church-planting borders and began partnering with Iglesia Communidad De Vida in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, led by church planter Joel Agüero.

And in 2024, First Baptist planted Graceway Baptist Church, National City, California. That church was born after Joemel Delossantos, youth pastor at First Baptist for 12 years, had felt called in 2023 to plant a church in that city, less than 20 minutes away from First Baptist.

“Where God Guides, He Provides”

First Baptist is not a large congregation full of financial donors. This church had “only 60 in membership in 2010 and less than 120 members in 2022,” RJ says. “We have learned that we don’t have to be a big church to do something great for the Lord,” RJ says. “We constantly remind ourselves that church planting is not about the mother church’s seating capacity but its sending capacity.”

When it comes to doing something by faith, we sometimes hesitate, convincing ourselves that faith is good but that too much faith is foolishness. Planting a church doesn’t need to be a high-stakes endeavor. For example, through a neighborhood Bible study, people come to faith, they’re discipled, and they form a church.

First Baptist didn’t go searching for these opportunities, RJ points out. “The Lord has His way of bringing these needs to us. Where God guides, He provides! Until then, we must wait as He unfolds these plans right before our eyes and continue to plant more churches until Jesus comes.”

This article is condensed from “Planting a Church by Faith” by Clare Jewell, published in the Spring 2023 Baptist Bulletin, and includes updates provided by RJ Cabugwas. Clare is director of Generate and national representative of Regular Baptist Ministries.