Earl Jessup

Earl Jessup, General Director

Dr. Earl Jessup has been in the ministry for 38 years having started in the ministry as a church planter in Canada. Dr. Jessup started two churches while serving with BIMI in Canada from 1972 to 1987. In December 1987, he became the pastor of Kirkfield Park Baptist Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he began the Canadian Church Planting Ministry. BCPM helped in reproducing seven churches in five years under his leadership.

Dr. Jessup basically transplanted his church in other communities, which had no fundamental church. He would do this by holding a week of meetings in the community with the church providing the music, nursery workers, ushers, preaching, and financing. The meetings were highly advertised and people from the new communities would attend the services. The new work would be started from a nucleus of people that attended these meetings.

His ministry grew to the place where he could no longer effectively pastor the church and start churches. He chose to resign and expand his ministry in church planting.  In August of 1993, Dr. Jessup founded Baptist Church Planting Ministry and is currently the General Director. This United States office is based in Apple Valley, Minnesota and is a ministry out of First Baptist Church in Rosemount.  BCPM is a ministry to help local churches reproduce local churches.

Since August 1993, one hundred thirteen churches have been reproduced. He is now helping other churches do what he did. Many pastors want to plant churches but don’t have the time, finances, or experience to do so.  Dr. Jessup believes planting churches is the fulfillment of the Great Commission. By following the “Jerusalem Methodology” more churches can start on less money. The average attendance in the first service of these new churches has been 30 to 40. The average expense is $5,000 for the start up costs. This depends on the size of the community that is being reached.  These new churches gave nearly $2,000,000 to missions in 2009, mostly using Faith Promise giving and these churches have created six times more missions dollars than it has taken to operate BCPM during the same period.  BCPM is now expanding into foreign countries and helping churches take the responsibility of reproducing churches in their countries.

Baptist Church Planting Ministry has helped churches in several other countries. Churches have been reproduced not only in the United States, and Canada, but also in Australia, France, Scotland, Guatemala and Kenya. Dr. Jessup believes that the cultural differences between Americans and other countries hinders the successful planting of churches and that fundamental Baptist churches in every country of the world have a much greater opportunity to reproduce successful churches than when churches are planted using pioneer methods. He has helped men in Scotland and Guatemala develop ministries with the same philosophy as BCPM. He wants to continue to develop the philosophy of local churches reproducing churches in countries around the world.

Dr. Jessup graduated from Piedmont Bible College in 1972 with a ThB. and from Northland Baptist Bible College in 1993 with an MMin. He was honored with a D.D. from FaithWay Baptist College in 1992 for his work in church planting in Canada.

Dr. Jessup is from Beckley, West Virginia and was saved at the age of seven at Mt. Tabor Baptist Church. He surrendered to the call to preach at 14. His wife, Beth, is from Sumter, South Carolina and was also saved at seven. The Jessups have five children, of whom three are married, and ten grandchildren. Dr. Jessup and his wife returned to Canada to live in 2001.  They live in Barrie, Ontario and are members of Heritage Baptist Church where Dr. LeRoy Pennell is the pastor. Heritage Baptist Church is the home church for Baptist Church Planting Ministry Canada.

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