Gospel-Centered
The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus remain at the center of our preaching, worship, discipleship, and mission.
Who we are
A Gospel-Centered, Disciple-Making Church
Our aim is to center our whole lives on Jesus as we make disciples and multiply churches.
We want to plant a church where the gospel shapes what we believe, how we worship, how we live together, and how we engage our community. Our desire is to see people known, equipped, and sent to help others follow Jesus.
Biblically Faithful
We trust the authority and sufficiency of Scripture and want God’s Word to shape everyday life.
Prayerfully Dependent
We believe lasting spiritual fruit comes from God, so prayer shapes our decisions, relationships, gatherings, and mission.
Relationally Invested
Discipleship happens through life together. We pursue hospitality, honest relationships, mutual care, and meaningful community.
Missionally Engaged
We equip every believer to live as a missionary in their individual spheres of influence.
Multiplication Focused
We develop disciples who make disciples, leaders who develop leaders, and a church prepared to help plant more churches.
Why Bethlehem
A Strategic Starting Point for the Gospel
As a Suburb of Albany, Bethlehem gives us a practical and strategic starting point. It is close to Albany, connected to the wider region, and full of people whose lives are shaped by work, family, school, and long commutes.
The area is strong on paper, but many people remain disconnected from a healthy local church. We want to enter with genuine affection, listen well, open our home, and become a faithful presence over time.
A Place to Plant Deeply
Bethlehem gives us a community where we can build relationships, serve our neighbors, and establish a church while remaining closely connected to Albany and the wider Capital Region.
A Community with Opportunity
More than 135,500 people live within a fifteen-minute drive, including families, students, professionals, educators, government employees, healthcare workers, and retirees.
A Long-Term Opportunity
Bethlehem provides a strategic place to develop disciples and leaders who can be sent throughout the Capital Region and help establish more healthy churches.
Regional Opportunity
Albany’s influence reaches far beyond the city through state government, universities, healthcare, business, and the people who move throughout the Northeast.
Regional Need
Only about 3% of the Capital Region identifies as evangelical. Many people remain disconnected from a healthy local church and the hope of the gospel.
Every disciple a disciplemaker
A Clear Path from Connection to Multiplication
Discipleship is more than information or attendance. We want to help people trust Jesus, obey Jesus, become like Jesus, and help others follow Jesus.
1
Connect
Visitor → Attender
Meet the church, build relationships, and begin returning.
2
Belong
Member
Complete Rooted and join the church body through membership.
3
Grow
Disciple
Enter a disciple making relationship and grow through prayer, Scripture, obedience, and life together.
4
Multiply
Disciplemaker
Help someone else follow Jesus through a Disciple-Making Relationship.
5
Lead & Send
Leader
Serve, lead, develop others, and pursue calling as God leads.
Rooted
Membership Class
A six-week introduction to the gospel, God, Scripture, discipleship, mission, and church life.
DMR
Disciple-Making Relationships
Two or three people meeting regularly for life-on-life discipleship.
M.A.W.L.
Model. Assist. Watch. Leave.
A simple process for training people and releasing them to train others.
PARTNER WITH US
Together for the Gospel
We are inviting churches, families, and individual partners to come alongside Go Albany in a meaningful way. This is more than support for a project. It is an opportunity to help establish a healthy church that can serve the Capital Region for years to come, make disciples, develop leaders, and help plant more churches in the future.
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Pray
Pray for our family, for the people of Albany, and for God to open doors for gospel relationships. Pray that He would form a healthy core team, give wisdom and endurance, and establish a church that makes disciples.
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Give
Give financially to help lay the foundation for long-term ministry. Your generosity will help make room for hospitality, community presence, gatherings, and the kind of healthy church life that can endure and multiply.
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Go
Consider how you might personally step into the work. Some may help by visiting, serving, sending a team, or exploring whether God may be calling them to be part of the core team in the Capital Region.
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Share
Help us build the network of people and churches who can strengthen this work. Share our story, make introductions, and help connect us with partners who may want to pray, give, send, or go.
For added accountability, Giving to Go Albany is currently processed through Cross Point Fellowship, which is overseeing and administering our finances. When giving, please select “Go Albany - Church planting” in the first dropdown so that your gift is directed to this ministry. Gifts are 501(c) tax-deductible.
What Your Partnership Will Help Build
Our goal is not simply to fund a launch. We are seeking to establish a healthy church with lasting roots in the Capital Region, while also setting aside resources that can help future church planting beyond the first work.
Funding the First Church — Seeding the Next
$300,000 Partner Giving Goal over three years
Three-Year Funding Transition
- Year 1
- Year 2
- Year 3
Partner support helps establish the church early, while congregational giving increasingly sustains the work over time.
CURRENT PARTNERS & ENDORSERS
We Are Not Doing This Alone
God has already surrounded this work with churches, ministry leaders, and partners who are praying, encouraging, giving, and helping us prepare for what is ahead. We are deeply grateful for those who have chosen to come alongside Go Albany.
I enthusiastically endorse Dan Shults for the Go Albany Church Planting Initiative. Having pastored Dan for the past several years, I have observed him to be a man of godly character, expositional faithfulness, and deep care for those within his sphere of influence. One of the most important things I’ve observed and appreciate about Dan is exhibited a shepherd’s heart without any “official” role or title at our church. He and his wife, Skyler, have been catalysts used by God to make and multiply disciples among our young married couples. I have experienced Dan as a faithful and gifted communicator of God’s Word, thoughtful and strategic leader, and compassionate shepherd. I recommend Dan without reservation - he is called, equipped, and ready. If you are a church leader looking for a ministry partner to lock arms with in one of the most spiritually dark places in our country, I would encourage you to look no further than Dan Shults.
Aaron Martin
Senior Pastor
Community Bible Church
High Point, NC
Daniel and Skyler Shults are a wonderful couple well suited to ministry and church planting in New York’s capital region, Albany. Albany has tremendous lostness in its own right, calling for its own new churches. It is also a major crossroads of the Northeast with opportunities throughout most of the Northeast. Daniel and Skyler have the heart to not just reach their personal community but to also be a part of seeing God do something much larger. Church planting in the region is desperately needed. Daniel and Skyler will be supported by a thriving network of churches and church plants already here, Hudson Baptist Association, that has worked together with other partners to plant 31 churches in the region since 2001. We’re excited for them to be planting number 32! We encourage others to join us in helping them see their vision become a reality. Would you invest in the largest US mission field?
Sean Pierce
Pastor
Director of Multiply Northeast
Guilderland, NY
Dan and Skyler have a love for Jesus and people that is contagious. It has been such a joy to watch these loves grow and then lead them to move to this area of the country that has a desperate need for the Good News of Jesus and churches that tell and live that Good News! The Northeast has a growing hunger for the hope of Jesus, and more churches are needed to reach more people. Their vision for Go Albany to help start and strengthen churches is so exciting and also challenging for those of us currently serving in this beautiful harvest field! We love and wholeheartedly endorse Dan and Skyler in this sacrificial commitment to love Jesus and serve people and look forward to seeing the eternal fruit of their labor!
Adam Mihm
Pastor
Cross Point Fellowship
Hurley, NY
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North American Mission Board
Send Network
Cross Point Fellowship
Kingston, NY
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Community Bible Church
High Point, NC
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River of Life
Guilderland, NY
And More
Is your church interested in coming alongside the work? We’d love to connect and explore what a partnership with Go Albany could look like.
Connect With Us