Before We Plant, We Pray: Project Antioch and the CRC’s Ten-Year Church Planting Vision

When Synod 2026 approved Resonate Global Mission’s Ten-year Strategic Plan for Church Planting, it invited the CRCNA into an ambitious season of church multiplication. It is natural to begin thinking about goals, funding, leaders, locations, and strategy. Those conversations are necessary. Yet the first movement in the plan begins somewhere more foundational: prayer and fasting.

That first movement is called Project Antioch. 

Drawing its name from Acts 13:1–3, it calls classes and congregations to become intentionally attentive to the Holy Spirit. The church at Antioch was worshiping and fasting when the Spirit set apart Barnabas and Saul. The church then prayed and fasted again, laid hands on them, and sent them. Their missionary movement did not begin with a program. It began in the presence of God.

Several weeks ago, I was reading Ezra as part of my personal devotions. Ezra and a large group of exiles were preparing for the long and dangerous journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. At the Ahava Canal, Ezra proclaimed a fast so the people could humble themselves and ask God to protect them, their children, and their possessions along the way (Ezra 8:21–23).

What caught my attention was the way Ezra addressed the people. I was struck that he treated prayer and fasting as a requirement, not a request. It was not simply a helpful spiritual option for anyone who happened to be interested. Before the community began the journey, they would humble themselves and seek God together. They fasted, they prayed, and God answered them (Ezra 8:23, 31).

The CRC is also preparing for a journey. 

We do not know all the challenges, opportunities, or communities we will encounter over the next ten years. We do know that plans, funding, staffing structures, and good intentions cannot create spiritual renewal or gospel fruit by themselves. We need the direction and empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.

Project Antioch invites every classis to identify people who can encourage prayer, develop regular times of prayer and fasting, and pray for the multiplication of disciples, leaders, and churches. It also encourages prayer support for church plants and their parent churches and calls congregations to gather for corporate prayer. This reflects a much wider biblical pattern: God’s people seek him together in times of repentance, discernment, and mission (Joel 2:12–17; Matthew 9:37–38; Acts 4:23–31).

Classis Quinte, Classis Toronto, and Classis Niagara are currently exploring ways to participate in a week of prayer and fasting. Other prayer gatherings are also being organized throughout the CRC. Jon Hoekema, the CRC’s denominational prayer shepherd, is preparing prayer guides that can lead churches through a week-long journey of prayer, culminating in a combined service. Congregations will be able to adapt these resources to their own language, schedule, worship tradition, and local context.

Fasting is not a way to earn God’s favour or pressure God into blessing our plans. It is a way of setting aside food or another ordinary activity so we can give focused attention to God in humility, repentance, dependence, and prayer. For some, that may mean missing a meal. For others, it may mean stepping away from media, entertainment, or another regular activity and giving that time to Scripture and prayer.

The invitation is simple: before we build the strategy, let us seek the Lord. Before we ask who will plant, where they will go, or how the work will be funded, let us listen together. Before we ask God to bless our plans, let us ask him to shape them.

Imagine churches across the CRC praying together for renewed congregations, disciples who make disciples, leaders who develop other leaders, communities that need a gospel witness, and new churches rooted in their local neighbourhoods. The ten-year vision is ambitious, but ambition is not our foundation. Prayerful dependence upon God is.

Perhaps Project Antioch can help us recover a simple conviction: the Lord’s work requires the Lord’s direction and strength. The journey ahead should begin as Ezra’s journey began and as the mission from Antioch began: with God’s people humbled, listening, fasting, praying, and ready to obey.