Inside Church Planting

November-December, 2003              Volume 1, Number 2

Contents

This Issue

Feature Article: The Church Planting Process

2004 Northwest Church Planting Workshop

Must Read

Seattle Metro Church

Breaking 200, growing beyond the 200 barrier of church membership

Best Practices Tip

Reader's Forum

Subscribing to ICP

Northwest Church Planting Workshop

The 2nd annual church planting workshop will be held March 19-20 at Cascade College, Portland, Oregon. Phil Claycomb, National Director of Planter Care for Stadia: New Church Strategies will be our primary presenter.

This Issue

Developing an effective ministry plan with workable time frames and goals is a critical part of the planning process for successful church planting. Our feature article describes a 3 year approach that covers the church plant from conception to reproduction.

At the suggestion of one of ICPs readers this issue inaugurates a Reader's Forum where you can ask questions, share ideas and generally get involved in discussion about the church planting adventure with other readers of ICP.

Editor: Dr. Stanley Granberg, Cascade College.

PLANNING THE CHURCH PLANT

Aubrey Malphurs, in his book Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century, introduces the reader to Bill and Betty Smith, an imaginary couple getting excited about the prospect of church planting. Bill and Betty are the prototypical church planting couple. They begin with a vision, a dream arising from God's calling, but their excitement often outraces their preparations. And there we are too. It's one thing to talk about planting a church, but it soon dawns on us, we might not really know what we ought to do to actually get the thing planted! This "activity fog" illustrates a fundamental need: the need to plan the church plant.

The most common descriptions of the church planting process use a child-birth and growth analogy, with the process starting with conception, moving through various growth phases analogous to the stages of a growing person, and ultimately ending with reproducing another new church. The model we're using here employs titles which describe the major task of each phase. Each phase is presented with a suggested time frame based on quarter years, a time period helpful for for constructing a Time/ Task Worksheet. These time frames are suggestions. How quickly you might actually move through a phase depends on how quickly the primary tasks are accomplished rather than how much time has elapsed.

In this issue of Inside Church Planting we'll look briefly at the first three phases in the church planting process and get the last three phases in the next issue.

Conception Phase, 0-3 months

The primary task of the Conception Phase is to prepare the foundation for the church plant. For the church planter, this meanings receiving the call of God, listening to what God wants and responding in faith.

Three essential objectives need to be met in this phase:

1. Clarify your vision. The vision is your statement of faith about what God wants to do. Malphurs defines the vision as "a clear, challenging picture of the future of your ministry as it can and must be" (Planting Growing Churches, p. 264). Ask yourself the question, "What do I think God wants this church to be in 10 years?" and answer it.

 

2. Identify your core values. Core values are like the airstrip lights on a runway or the stripes on a highway, they guide your activity to success. Core values are those irreducible statements of passionate belief that will determine all the other plans and activities of the church. Begin with one word descriptions, then expand the idea into a sentence or two that demonstrates how this value will be lived out in the new church.

 

3. Develop your ministry flow chart. This is your action plan. It will tell you what you need to do and when you need to begin and to accomplish each task. The New Dynamic Church Planting Handbook (Becker, Carpenter & Williams, p.187f, www.DCPI.org) suggests identifying landmark events, the payday items, and placing their beginning and ending dates on a Time/Task sheet for each phase. Each landmark event may require a number of process items which must be completed in order to achieve your payday. Place these on your chart with their beginning and ending dates. In the example below I've left justified and italicized the landmark event and right justified the process items which must be completed to accomplish the landmark.

 

Team Building Phase, 4-6 months

The primary task of the Team Building Phase is to gather your core church planting team. These are the people that God will use to get this new church started--and to keep you sane and healthy!

Five essential objectives need to be met in this phase:

1. Share your values and vision. Share your vision so that people know what they're buying into. Share the vision often. Let people have time to digest it and ask questions. The people who buy into the vision are those God is bringing to you.

 

2. Gain commitments. Give people specifics. What will this task require of them? How long are you asking them to work in the church plant? What will they be responsible for? How will they know when they have completed their commitment?

 

3. Begin team meetings. These meetings will probably not be on Sundays. They are time to get to know one another, share the vision and make commitments visible.

 

4. Explain and revise the ministry plan. Up to this point your ministry plan exists only between you and God. Now you bring others into it. As with your vision, give people opportunity to ask questions, to digest the plan and to offer their gifts and talents into the revision. Remember, these people are gifts from God, let them enter the plan with those gifts.

 

5. Train for ministry. Some of your team may have well developed skills, others may not. Know what the needs are for the plant and train people so they're confident in filling those needs.

Evangelize and Gather Phase, 7-9 months

The primary task of the Evangelize and Gather Phase is to engage in evangelistic activities to build multiple community groups. A community group is a cell or home group that will be an essential identity point for your church, i.e., when people commit to this church they will also commit to being part of a community group.

There are five essential objectives in this phase:

1. Move into your community. Hey, this is the fun part, when you finally get onto the field. Enjoy. Explore. Have fun.

 

2. Investigate community characteristics/needs and develop relationship circles. While you're doing all that exploring you might as well learn your community. Ala Rick Warren, develop a series of questions you want to learn the answers to from people in your community. The US Census Bureau also has a load of free information at www.census.gov.

 

3. Initiate disciple-making processes. How are you going to make meaningful contact with the unchurched that moves them into a seeking opportunity? It's time to develop those processes. One way is to develop relationship networks around people, places or events. For example, your local coffee shop may be a "place" relationship node. Here you become acquainted with 12 regulars at the coffee shop. This is one relationship network. Develop sufficient networks so that you know the names and some personal information on 50 people. With your disciple-making processes you will need to cover the following 6 steps: a) see unchurched people, b) meet them, c) initiate conversation with them d) invite them, e) engage them in a meaningful learning dialog, and f) provide opportunities for them to make decisions and commitments.

 

4. Train community group leaders and apprentices. A community group is your basic small group for ministry, discipling and creating community. In order to grow larger you need to be able to grow groups. That means training group leaders and empowering them to carry out their ministry call.

 

5. Multiply community groups (2-4 groups). If your church is going to have a public celebration/worship service as a key characteristic, you need to build the people power to carry it out. Generally, to grow a church larger than 200 it is suggested you have from 50 to 100 adults in your community groups. That will mean a minimum of 2, but probably 4 or more functioning community groups (C. Peter Wagner, Church Planting for a Greater Harvest, pp. 119-120).

READER'S FORUM

Introduction: Marcus Reese is a church planting missionary to Papua New Guinea. The Reese family have worked with the Leslie Williams family in the Alatau region of PNG since 2000.

My name is Marcus Reese and I am spending the next year trying to write a through-the-Bible evangelistic study to present to whole villages in my area of Papua New Guinea (something like the New Tribes Mission approach, but shorter and with different curriculum).  If you have done anything like this and would be willing to advise me, please let me know.  Also, if you are interested in doing the same thing, I'd be willing to let you know more of what we're learning.  Email: reesepng@global.net.pg

If you have a response or suggestion for Marcus, you may contact him directly, but please copy of your response to cpnw@cascade.edu as well.