#WinFontana
The city of Fontana is one of the fastest growing cities in the Inland Empire. There are numerous amounts of new communities that are being developed (new parks and schools) in the city. In 2025, the estimated population of the city is 230,000. This number will continue to increase drastically. If a local church will average about 100 membership in Sunday worship attendance, it will be approximately .043% of 100% of the population.
Looking intently at the graph, in yellow, you will see a microscopic percentage of the 100 membership of a local church. Although we know that we are not the only church in Fontana, if we planted 100 churches today with 100 members per church, it would only average about 4.5% of the population. If there are 100 members per church in Fontana, we will need to start 2,300 churches just to cover the population of Fontana alone. The Inland Empire has over four million plus population. Not only do we need to start another church, but we need to focus on multiplying the churches, and we need to do it soon! Our main priority as a church is to start being active both inside and outside the church; developing healthy and relational-centered churches in Fontana.
Here is a short background of Be The Message Church (BTM): BTM Church was planted in 2011 in Southern Fontana. The church was planted by Paul Sasis with the help of other families and highschool students. In the span of 7 years it has planted about 5 churches. Be The Message is a very relational and diverse church that shares massively on community outreaches and has a very strong discipleship depth within the church. As a young church, we desire to grow, to mature and be effective; to be healthy and strong to make disciples in the city.
After years of being devoted to church planting in different cities, in this new season, we are stepping back to see the bigger picture. We have decided to focus on taking ownership of our growing city. I believe God wants us to reach our city. The vision is very similar to church planting. You can call it whatever you want, but the goal is to bring the church to the people. We want to multiply what God is doing in our own corner by duplicating it all over Fontana. Remember, we need 2,300 churches (100 members per church). Therefore, our vision and mission is to have worship services on Sunday in houses, schools and/or community centers.
What if we change the typical church planting that we know of jumping from one city to another, why don’t we start pouring our energy and resources in starting churches in one city? Perhaps, multiplying a healthy church in one city can result in multiplication of churches to neighboring cities. We are not an expert in church planting, but we have planted churches and helped others to start churches. We have seen the effectiveness of a church plant in a city but the impact is too small compared to the vast amount of population that needs to be reached.
There was an experiment of a small magnet trying to lift a block of metal from the ground. Scientifically, it is impossible. However, they started to add one more small magnet, one after the other, until the block of metal was lifted up from the ground. In the same way, another church plant cannot lift the load by itself. We need a church that multiplies itself within the city to carry the load in saturating the city with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We love church planting and we want to see churches being planted in different cities, but how can we make it more effective in spreading the gospel in the city and strengthen church planting in other cities? We believe a church or a church plant should take ownership and plan to multiply within the city.
Currently, we are hosting community groups in the south part of Fontana (close to 10 Fwy), and in the north side of Fontana (close to 210 Fwy and 15 Fwy). One fact about the north side of Fontana is that many new communities are being developed. In our observation, it seems ineffective to bring North Fontana residents to church because of the church location (South Fontana).
After months of seeking the Lord in prayer, we are planning to hold a worship service on the northside of Fontana. A place where people can be part of the faith family and build a connection. A place where they can grow and mature as followers of Jesus. We want to go where the people are, and be the church in the community. This is the start of our vision, multiplying ourselves within the city, by being the church of the city. We know the church will face many challenges, but we are convinced that we need to bring the gospel in the community.
Since this is our first attempt to start another worship service, we want to be conservative yet aggressive and sensitive with the process. We are launching a six-month campaign to let the community know about the church and another six months of soft launch before we officially launch the church. By doing this, it will give us enough time to organize the church, get enough volunteers, and build new partnership from other churches. We will continue to have morning service on the south side of Fontana and have an evening service in the north side of Fontana. This will be the start of the new season of Be The Message Church. We are very excited to see what the Lord would do in multiplying churches, #WinFontana.
Start Praying
“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:35-38
When Jesus saw the crowd, He was moved with compassion. This should be the heart of a local church when we look at our own city. This is what we saw when we look at the growing population of our city; 230,000 people in our own backyard! We believe many families, marriages, students, and individuals are like sheep without a shepherd. They were harassed and helpless. The harvest is great and we know; only through sincere prayer that we can see more workers in the harvest field.
We asked the question: how can we reach the 230,000 population of our city? Jesus said, “PRAY”. Therefore, as a local church, we started by praying for the salvation of our city. We are praying that God would open our eyes and see what He sees when He looks at our city. We are praying that God would open our hearts so we could feel what He feels when He looks at our city. We are praying that He would break our hearts and take us out of our comfort zone so the church will take action to respond to the invitation of Jesus to work for His harvest.
If we are going to be honest, we still don’t know how this vision and mission would look like in the future, but we know there are hundreds of thousands of people who need to hear the gospel. We pray and seek the Lord’s guidance on how to win our city. Sometimes, we feel quite ambitious praying that God would indeed save most of the population in Fontana. However, by faith we pray that we will see that in our time and we will be the workers that God would use in this great harvest.
We are asking you to pray for us as we embark on this new season of winning Fontana for Christ. If you are a local in Fontana, we are praying that you would join us on this mission. We can’t promise you that it will be easy, but we will make sure that we will be together in good and in bad times, as we see God move in our city.
The Mission Field
Be The Message started with a simple principle, “Wherever you set your feet, that is your mission field.” We believe that all believers are called to share the gospel in words and in deeds. No one is exempted. Even today, this is the heartbeat of BTM church; living on mission and making disciples. Every event or activity that we do as a church is aligned to our vision and mission. When we started to pray for what God wants us to do, God put a heavy burden on the church to minister to its own city.
We had a great seven years of planting and helping churches from other cities, but now, God is pulling our hands out and placing them on the heart of our own city. We have never felt such an urge to really grow the church and greatly invest within our city. The first action that we are praying to do is to have worship service in North Fontana. Once again, we are still open to plant churches in different cities. However, we want to prioritize our mission field in Fontana.
We want you to see a visual map of open opportunities for us to start churches within our city. A lot of new families are moving in Fontana, hundreds of homes will soon be occupied, and the population of students in public schools are growing each year. This is the right time to prepare and mobilize the church for harvest!
With a huge task in front of us, we know that we cannot do it alone. We believe that Be The Message Church is a successful church plant because of the investment of other believers, churches, and different organizations. They have helped and assisted us along the way. There is no difference from this new vision that God has given to us. We will need all the prayers, help, and support that you can give to win our city.
The Bigger Picture
BTM worship service in North Fontana is not a typical church plant. Rather, it is a multiplication of the ministry of Be The Message Church within the city to reach the growing city of Fontana. We are mobilizing the church to saturate the old and the new communities in Fontana. The vision and the mission of the church is the same and the church leadership is the same.
The bigger picture of our vision is to have churches gathering all over Fontana. It could be “house churches” or community groups. It could be a local congregation that meets in local facilities such as community centers or public schools. The vision is to have multiple gatherings of churches not just on Sunday, but throughout the week.
Vision
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Growing Disciples, Starting Churches
Mission
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Reach UP – Personal Relationship with God
Reach IN – Discipleship and Ministry
Reach OUT – Living on Mission
Goal
Our goal is to establish a worship service in the area of North Fontana to reach new families who are moving in the area. We believe bringing the church to the new community will give us an opportunity to make disciples and multiply as the area increases its population growth.
Target Location
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Local Home, School or Community Center, North Fontana
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Target Communities
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(New Communities) Shady Trails, Citrus Heights, Sierra Lakes, Bella Vista, Summit Place, Stone Haven, Rosena Ranch, and Rosena Place.
Financial Support and Donations
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Hosting another worship service at a different location will entail a huge financial burden to our church. In the beginning of the process, we will need all the support that we can get. As we move forward from this vision, we need to ask for partnership from other groups, churches, and organizations. Our goal is to become independent and be able to cover all our needs, but we need to be realistic and conservative. If we desire to reach another large section of Fontana, we need to ask for assistance from other churches. We will accept church supplies donations as well as financial donations. We will also give a tax-deductible receipt upon receiving the donation or financial support.
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The Process
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The process of hosting an extension worship service is very crucial to the success of the ministry. We have created a six-month campaign for preparation and another six months of soft launch for training and assessment before the worship service is officially launched. We are praying for 50+ new members from the community that would join the church.