About Marty
Marty Schoenleber, Jr. is a church planter, teaching pastor and published poet. Over the years he has worn a number of hats, from business owner and entrepreneur, to seminary professor, traveling speaker, missionary, consultant, mentor, coach, pastor, but his favorite title is “Dad.” Marty loves Jesus, his wife, his children, church planting, books, baseball, Philadelphia Eagles football, the music of U2, Caedmon’s Call, Nickel Creek, and Rich Mullins, Philly cheese steaks, and more books.
Good News!
Call2All Conference New Zealand
I am preparing for a brief trip to New Zealand’s summer in mid January. I will be representing DCPI at the Call2All conference in Tauranga, New Zealand from January 17-21...upcoming events
New York Church Planting Conference
In early December, I had the privilege of traveling to Schenectady, NY to participate in the training of 75 church planting leaders, mostly, from the Northeast.
Our History
Radical Church Planting (RadicalChurchPlanting.com) is composed of partners with Marty and Stephnie Schoenleber who are committed to starting a church planting movement in our life time that will transform communities around the world for the glory of Jesus.
In 1988, Marty Schoenleber and his wife Stephnie were enjoying an exciting ministry in San Bernardino California with Campus Crusade for Christ. Marty was the administrator for the International School of Theology's (ISOT) extension programs and an instructor in communication. Stephanie was a trainer/discipler of women at the seminary as well as mother to two children. A one credit Church Planting course changed their life's direction. Marty began to look at the possibility of planting and then pastoring a church that would be multi-ethnic and cross-cultural, with a decidedly contemporary flavor to ministry. At the same time, his desire was to pioneer ministry that would reach the unchurched community in a way that did not water down or compromise the gospel. In addition, Marty felt it was vitally important that the new church be a "church-planting church", a church committed to extending the Kingdom of God by regularly sending people from its congregation to plant new churches.
Throughout 1988, Marty and Stephanie prayed about the Lord's direction. About this same time, Marty's brother Karl, living in Naperville, Illinois, encouraged him to submit his resume to the Evangelical Free Church of Naperville (EFCN). In the process of that submission, Marty's conviction about planting a church took concrete form. EFCN wanted to plant another church. Marty asked to be considered as the planter and suggested the village of Bolingbrook as the site. In March of 1989 a tentative time table was proposed for planting a church in September of 1990 and sent to the leadership of EFCN. The eventual planting of the church was delayed one year, but on October 13, 1991, New Song Church was born.
New Song Church grew quickly, and with it grew the diversity of lives represented at New Song and the significant changes taking place with those lives. New Song became a proto-type for the multi-ethnic suburban church and has since been included as a new model for urban and suburban ministry in Dr. John Fuder and Noel Castellanos’ A Heart for the Community, (Moody Press, 2009). This was a powerful answer to prayer and a fulfillment of the vision to be an effective non-homogenus unit principle (HUP) church. As Marty said in one interview, “Our desire was always to create a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural church where people of all colors and nationalities would experience the love of Christ and the harmony of a united family of believers.”
New Song Church has since sent people to start churches in Naples, Florida, Joliet, Illinois, Redmond, Washington, Jakarta, Indonesia and two in Bolingbrook, IL. We have been honored to have interns and students from three different seminaries come for training. Those interns have planted new churches in places as near as Worth and Schaumburg, Illinois and as far away as Sunnyvale, California, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Hiroshima, Japan and Oldenburg, Halle and Munich, Germany. God is doing a great work and it is humbling to be part of His Spirit's move. In September of 2008, Marty stepped away from the senior pastor role at New Song Church to plant a new church closer to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL and to pioneer a new type of church planting training center. Those new works are called, The Sanctuary, and The St. John’s Study Center.
Currently
Marty and New Song Church were made the recipients of the EFCA's Church Planting Church Award in 2003. As “The Prof,” Marty teaches two church planting classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has also taught Preaching and communication at the International School of Theology in California and Evangelism at Moody Graduate School of Theology. As a frequent conference and retreat speaker, Marty travels around the world training and encouraging church planters and challenging churches to take the gospel to the lost, the least and the last.
download my personal resume
Member of the Evangelical Free Church of America
Our mission statement: We exist to glorify God by multiplying healthy churches among all people, drives our vision for the future of the EFCA. We envision accelerated growth in the number of Christ’s disciples and churches and the percentage of ethnic groups represented in the EFCA. We are committed to an EFCA that mirrors the demographics of the U.S., and reflects the "all people" God is redeeming.
EFCA Website