‘The Detroit Project’ Establishes PCA Presence in Motor City

Church planting project has launched 7 churches in metro Detroit in past 13 years

Dan Millward looks for three characteristics when interviewing prospective church planters.

First, they have to be evangelists who will make connections and share the gospel. Second, they must possess an entrepreneurial spirit to get a church off the ground.

And third, they must be crazy.

“Because you have to be crazy to plant a church,” he says.

He’s proud to work with a group of men who check all three boxes.

Millward is the director of The Detroit Project, a movement to establish PCA churches in the greater Detroit area. He knows it’s going to take people with a healthy dose of tenacity to reach every corner of metro Detroit.

“It’s not for the faint of heart, I can tell you that,” he said.

But with tenacity and confidence in the gospel, these church planters see the Lord working in the Detroit area as people come to faith and new churches gain traction in diverse communities. In 13 years The Detroit Project has planted seven churches in metro Detroit.

The Start

Millward considers The Detroit Project founder, Ryan McVicar, to be one of the best church planters he knows. McVicar’s desire to start The Detroit Project began with a burden for people growing up like he did, with no knowledge about the gospel.

“I had never had a Christian friend or family member or anybody who engaged me about the gospel or anything about the cross,” he said. “It just broke my heart.”

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He wanted to do something about it, and in talking with others, learned that in 2012 Detroit was the largest city in the U.S. without a PCA church. There had been two separate attempts at church plants in Detroit, but neither plant had succeeded. As he researched more, he realized there were too few churches who were faithfully proclaiming the gospel. McVicar called it “a wasteland as far as gospel-centered, biblically-faithful churches.”

The need was so great, he knew one church wouldn’t be enough to reach the more than 4 million people living in the Detroit metro area. They needed more than a church plant; they needed a church that would plant more churches. And so was born the idea for The Detroit Project.

“Before we ever started that first church, the vision was to plant 10 churches throughout the Detroit region by the year 2030,” he said.

The Detroit Project’s leadership strategically considered where to plant, aiming to put churches in Detroit’s diverse communities that are most in need of gospel-centered churches. In 2012, McVicar decided to plant the first church, New City Presbyterian Church, in Royal Oak, a northern Detroit suburb with 58,000 residents.

Why Royal Oak?

McVicar said that in terms of square miles, Detroit is larger than Manhattan, Boston, and San Francisco combined. Royal Oak represented a strategic position to influence both Detroit and many of its northern suburbs. There were over a million people living within a 10-mile radius of Royal Oak, and yet there was only one evangelical church for every 5,000 people.

But Royal Oak’s strategic location did not make it an easy place to plant. The community prided itself in being “a vanguard for progressive values,” McVicar said. There were other Detroit suburbs that were more socially conservative and might have been easier places to establish a new PCA church. But McVicar did not want an easy road.

“We chose that very intentionally, and we wanted to begin in the place that we thought was the hardest soil that would necessitate evangelism and prayer.”

Looking back, McVicar believes the plant was successful because of a strong core team and God’s grace. From the start, they prioritized evangelism like a missionary in a foreign country would do.

“There’s no healthy, fruitful church plant apart from just getting the gospel into people’s lives, connecting with the unchurched, being present in the community, developing trust, and leveraging all those opportunities and relationships toward the gospel,” he said.

Expanding

Millward was a successful businessman for many years, but after selling his business and moving to Traverse City in Northern Michigan, he felt called into ministry. He served as a director with Youth for Christ for years and earned a degree from Reformed Theological Seminary before joining The Detroit Project to plant a PCA church in Traverse City.

In 2013, Millward was coaching McVicar as he planted the Royal Oak church and looking for the right candidate for the second plant in Downtown Detroit. Millward called McVicar to check in on the search for a Detroit church planting candidate when McVicar offered a startling suggestion. Perhaps the Millwards should consider relocating back to Detroit to plant the downtown church.

Millward remembers laughing out loud at the suggestion, saying, “Ryan, people don’t move from Traverse City to Detroit; they move from Detroit to Traverse City.”

But Millward’s wife, Laura, insisted that they commit to praying about the situation, and they sensed the Lord was moving them to take the call in Detroit. She says it was a hard decision to make because as much as they had a heart for the city, they hated the thought of moving away from family. They surrendered to the call but asked God to make it clear and open doors.

He did so abundantly. Within 90 days the Millwards had raised over $700,000 to support the church planting effort, and roadblocks disappeared. They began inviting people into their home and getting to know local residents, then they looked for a place to rent. After some shorter rental opportunities in downtown buildings, they found a historic Catholic church that was closing.

They tried to make connections and meet as many people as possible whether it be through having coffee with a homeless person or networking with professionals.

“We just immersed ourselves into the city and into the people,” Laura said.

Their work resulted in establishing Redeemer Detroit as a PCA foothold in the heart of Detroit. Once the church was established, McVicar asked Millward to take over leading The Detroit Project and use his church and business skills to move it forward.

A Growing Team

As responsibilities at The Detroit Project expanded, Millward wanted another pastor to take over the senior pastor role at Redeemer Detroit. He found the perfect guy in Jon Saunders, who was working at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan.

Except, Saunders wasn’t interested. Saunders admits that when Millward first pitched the job, Saunders gave a hasty “No.” Detroit had recently gone through bankruptcy and was infamous for crime and poverty. It didn’t seem like the kind of place he would want to move his wife and young children.

But as he and his wife, Vanessa, began to pray about it, like the Millwards, their hearts softened to the idea.

Saunders and his wife visited the city and considered the need and whether they could help.

“There are other churches in Detroit that really knew how to care for the urban poor, but I didn’t sense that there was actually a church that really knew how to engage young, secular urbanites in downtown Detroit,” Saunders said.

He felt God calling him to fill the need, so he accepted the call. His family made the move, and he began working hard to make connections in the city to help Redeemer grow.

“A lot of people said it might not even work,” he said.

They urged him to try his best and move on if it didn’t pan out. They cautioned him that even if the plant did survive, it would never attract young families.

Saunders was undeterred and approached meeting people in Detroit as he had when he was a campus minister. He got to know students at local educational institutions and started Bible studies. He made connections in the city through various programs.

Seven years later, he’s happy to say the church has not only grown, but is filled with young families.

“In every way, God’s done so much more than we could ever imagine,” Saunders said.

Among Redeemer’s members are many new converts who came to know God because of the ministries of the church.

Saunders asked Millward to stay on as Redeemer’s associate pastor and devote his time to church planting. Saunders appreciates the support of The Detroit Project’s network as they do this work. Millward has organized a weekly meeting for the church planters.

“Almost every week, there’s some kind of story about somebody coming to know the Lord,” Saunders said.

They celebrate those victories, but also rely on each other through the struggles. The organization helps in practical ways as well. Because of his business experience, Millward is able to help when it comes to negotiating leases, and Laura takes care of managing the financial books for the church plants.

Saunders said he is confident that with God’s help, those ministering in Detroit now and at the new plants started by The Detroit Project can do good things for the city.

“Most people today see the church as the problem. We think the opposite. The church is God’s answer for caring for the poor, caring for the successful, but depressed, downtown professional.”

They’re taking it one plant at a time. After helping to establish Royal Oak and serving as its senior pastor for 10 years, in 2022, McVicar felt called to break new ground by planting a new church in Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, 45 minutes west of Detroit. Gradually they’ve started new plants in the areas where they see the greatest need.

Jerry and Ketherine Riendeau moved their family to Dearborn in the summer of 2022 to plant Grace Presbyterian. Before moving to Detroit, the couple served for 13 years with a college ministry. Riendeau said he was drawn to The Detroit Project’s vision for reaching multiple parts of the city.

Dearborn is a significant area for multiple reasons. It is home to large colleges, The University of Michigan at Dearborn and Henry Ford College, and has a large, young, professional population moving into the city to work at the Ford Motor Company’s worldwide headquarters. The majority of Dearborn’s population is also of Middle Eastern or North African descent, and in 2023 it became the first Arab majority city in the U.S.

“It is widely considered the center of Middle Eastern culture in North America,” Riendeau said.

He’s excited to reach a largely unchurched community. Like the other pastors in The Detroit Project, he has prioritized evangelism. As soon as the Riendeaus moved to town, they began getting involved.

“We joined the Chamber of Commerce. Our kids went to public schools. We joined the PTA, the neighborhood association, historical society – just joined everything we could,” Riendeau said.

They also hosted neighborhood events like cookouts and Christmas parties and handed out hundreds of invitations. Riendeau believes the local approach and having individual churches in unique neighborhoods is a good way to impact the city.

“We don’t really have desires to kind of become a regional church. We’re very focused just on our particular community here.”

The Vision

Looking back, Millward is amazed at what God has done in the city so far. As a result of The Detroit Project there are now seven new PCA churches in metro Detroit. Millward has also brought Aaron Carr, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Trenton, downriver from Detroit, onto the team as associate director of The Detroit Project.

One of the passages he loves to go to when he tells others about the mission of The Detroit Project is Acts 2 where Luke records how the early church was seeing people saved and added to the church daily.

“The Lord is not yet adding to our numbers daily those who are being saved, but there is seldom a week we are not celebrating one conversion,” he said.

He is more passionate than ever about the work they are doing.

“I’ve become obsessed with planting churches that are not just reshuffling the sheep,” he said.

Instead, he wants churches that will pierce the darkness with the light of Christ. As they press towards that goal, all involved say they are grateful.

“I am thankful to be part of what God has going on,” Laura Millward said. “That he would allow me to be part of it.”

This article was originally published by byFaith, the magazine of the PCA.

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