CHICAGO -- The North American Mission Board (NAMB) is seeking to enlist laity to help plant churches in about 60,000 communities across the United States and Canada, Baptist Press reported.

Toward that goal, missionaries, pastors and other church leaders discussed ideas during a workshop at the May 18-21 Connection 2003 conference.

The workshop, led by lay church planting specialist Van Kicklighter, focused on getting laypeople who live in target communities involved in leading the work there.

"There are pockets of people that existing churches are not reaching, for whatever reason, and the gospel is not being intentionally proclaimed," he said.

Kicklighter said the perception that church planting is done by paid church leaders is a barrier.

"Laypeople don't hear church planting as if we're talking to them," Kicklighter said. "So the question becomes, how do we create a climate that makes it natural for laypeople to understand that church planting is all about them?"

Kicklighter urged churches to spend more time intentionally praying for the lost in their own communities as well as elsewhere, the news service reported. He also suggested churches recognize people who have become involved in church planting.

"Most every church has one of those who is called, and they know that God's got more for them, but they don't know what it is," he said. "Nobody has really turned them loose to do it."

Denominationally, churches should be recognized more for the number of churches they've started, or the number of members they've sent out to work with a new church start, Kicklighter said.

He described several resources developed by NAMB and others to assist in raising awareness, enlisting and training lay church planters:

• Calling Out the Called is a process for helping laypeople pray through, define and live out their call to local missions -- culminating in a service in which they are given the opportunity to respond.
• Discovery Tools, a one-day workshop, helps people determine if God is calling them to church planting. Included are a spiritual gifts inventory and other assessment tools.
• A reprint of several profiles of lay church planters previously published in On Mission could help church members realize the possibilities for involvement.
• Laypeople in Church Planting is a new resource being developed by NAMB describing a comprehensive strategy for encouraging and supporting lay church planting with a church, association or state convention.