Chapter 2Jared and Laura, in listening for God's call in their life, were pulled toward London, England. They passed Discovery Lab with scores that indicated a high likelihood they could successfully plant a church once they had more experience under their belts. Kairos helped them secure an apprenticeship with Ethos Church in Nashville, where they could learn how healthy growing church systems function. During that season, the call shifted from London to the Northwest, the heart of post-Christian culture in the US.  When a planter moves to a new city to start a church, we call it parachuting in. It takes time to settle into a new place, build relationships, learn the culture, and allow the dream and plan for the church to form within the new context. Jared says, " We were going from Sunday-centric Christianity to Sundays being secondary at best. We were going from thousands of Christian relationships to almost none." The Kings knew there would be challenges in making such a big move, but Seattle was looming large in the future and they needed a plan. They attended their first Kairos Strategy Lab before moving to Seattle. And their plans looked great on paper. They were able to dream big, to think through the theories of what they hoped to accomplish, to give shape to their dream and make it a plan. Sure, it was all theory, but it was solid theory. With all their tools in place and a team enthusiastic about moving with them, they moved their family north. But there comes a place in every story when boots hit the pavement, when expectations crash up against reality, when a person's strength and faith are put to the test. To be continued . . .
Great team builders are great volunteer recruiters. Churches are volunteer based organizations. No matter how great the staff or well staffed a church is its ability to sustain itself and accomplish its mission is dependent upon a large base of engaged volunteers. And perhaps even more challenging, the larger the church the larger the percentage of volunteers it needs. This makes developing a strong volunteer culture a critical factor for growth and health. Here are five practices of a great volunteer recruiter:
Developing the leaders you need in your church is one of the most important tasks you will face as a church planter. There are a number of critical questions you will need to answer about leadership in your church, such as: Who should lead? How do I develop leaders? And, what are the key leadership roles? In this post we’re looking at the depth of your leadership, your leadership bench. If you are going to successfully lead a viable, sustainable church you will need to develop a 3-deep leadership system.  Levels of Leadership In its most basic form a leadership system will have three levels of leadership. We’re not talking roles (like pastor, elder, teacher) nor functions (apostle, prophet, evangelist). We’re talking about levels of leading. Leadership begins early in life for most people. The typical pathway is that we are good at something so others look to us to help get something done. Who was always captain of the school playground teams? It was the most athletic, the most capable, and the best players in the school. Because they could do something well the rest of us tended to look to them for leadership. They led by doing. In a church this is your entry level for leaders. If someone is showing leadership potential (i.e., they seem to be able to do something well) give them a task to complete that is a one-off activity with a definite beginning, end, and purpose. If they complete the task well you’ve got a doer and a potential leader on your hands. On your seed team if a person is not a proven leader you at least want them to be doers. But doers are not necessarily leaders. Remember this mantra and repeat it often: Leaders lead people; they don’t just do tasks Level 1 – The Task Leader If a person does the task well to help them grow into leadership stretch the task into an assignment, a repeating, ongoing task where the person must organize and direct others to do the task. This is when true leadership begins, when a new leader begins to lead others. Task leaders typically lead small teams of people, from a few to a few dozen. This is the size of a small group, a Bible class, a youth group, or a missional community. Task leaders create energy. They bring activity and excitement. You might think of task leaders as people who can organize “parties” other people like to be at. In a new church your task leaders are the people who will lead your financial team, your set-up and tear-down crew, and many of your service activities. Level 2 – The Team Leader Where the task leader knows how to get tasks done, the team leader is an organizer and problem-solver. Team leaders are leaders of leaders. They help your task leaders stay on task and get their jobs done. As a church planter you definitely need some team leaders on your seed team. They will be your missional community leaders in the first year of your church plant. Your team leaders will help you gather your launch team of sixty people in at least two missional communities. In your first year of planting you will need to develop additional team leaders to lead new missional communities and to organize service activities. Level 3 – The Planning Leader The planning leader know what needs to be done, then recruits and equips the people needed to get the work done. Planning leaders are problem-solvers. They see the gaps, the places of need, and they take the responsibility to fill the gap. Think of planning leaders as load-bearing walls in the developing structure of the new church. In a house the load bearing walls hold up the roof and keep the house together. In a church the load bearing leaders help you carry the weight of responsibility. The lack of planning leaders, leaders who can work at the third level of leadership, is a significant cause of church planter burnout. You’ve got to have people you can depend on to see the need, find the solution, and carry the responsibility to make sure what needs to get done does get done. Look for at least two people who are already planning leaders or who have definitie possibility to become planning leaders. As your new church develops you and your planning leaders will form the lead team of the church. Typically you will be responsible for the missional community and outreach load while your other two leaders will carry the worship and children’s ministries. Without these planning leaders you will find everything coming back to you. You and two planning leaders can probably grow the church to the 120 mark. When you get ready to bust through the 200-barrier you will need at least four of these planning leaders. As the lead planter you will need to grow these additional planning leaders in your second and third years Example of 3-Deep Leadership in Missional Communities Now let’s illustrate 3-deep leadership using missional communities (MC) as an example. One-Deep. When you start your missional community activity typically you’ll begin by running a model MC for three to six months. During this time you’ll lead the MC with two team leaders as your assistant leaders. You’ll set the rhythms for your MCs and get people used to the MC idea. At this point you’re a task leader leading one deep. You are leading people in a missional community. Two Deep. At the designated time you’ll end the example MC to begin two MCs, each led by your assistant leaders. Rather than you leading the MCs you are going to lead the MC leaders in a huddle format. While they meet and run their MCs weekly you’ll meet with them monthly to help them solve-problems, develop growth strategies, and gain confidence in discipling people. At this point you have a 2-deep leadership system. You are now acting as a team leader leading task leaders. Three Deep. Now lets say you have three or more missional communities, each with its own leader, assistant leader, and so on. In order to resource and coordinate these MCs you appoint an MC coordinator who takes your role in leading the MC leaders. Your MC coordinator is a team leader who can really take on the missional communities while you lead the whole church. Now you have a 3-deep leadership system: level 1 task leaders lead their MCs, level 2 team leader(s) lead, train, and coordinate the MC leaders and you are leading the church as a planning leader. That’s a basic 3-deep leadership system. You need to grow your leadership system while you’re growing the church numerically. If you are leading your new church personally, as a task leader, you’ll top out at about 60 people, well below the crowd size of 80. With a 2-deep leadership system with task and team leaders you’ll probably be able to stay above 80 but struggle to reach 120. With a 3-deep leadership system of task, team, and three planning leaders you should be able to reach 120 and can prepare yourself to break through the 200-barrier. This week a church planter and I were coaching on networking strategies. How do you go about entering into a new community and finding those Persons of Peace? Here's some ideas we came up with: 1. Ask people who know your community to help you understand it. These are people like realtors, school principals (particularly elementary schools), and police officers. Tell them who you are, what you are doing (this is your confession of faith as a planter), and how they can help you. If they agree they've begun to show signs of a person of peace because they are helping the mission. 2. Invite people to work alongside you in service events for your community. There are many good organizations, non-profits, and already existing activities in a community that always need help. You can become a resource for them (i.e., you're their person of peace). As you invite people into the activities of these already existing groups you also let them know you are doing this because you are starting a new church and you believe a church is a helping contributor to the community. When you do this you are building an identity and giving the people you invite the opportunity to connect with that identity. So, when someone asks, "Why are you here helping?" you want them to be able to say, "I was invited by Joe who is planting a new church here." 3. Organize special events that gather people, then let them know what you're doing as a church planter and invite them to next steps. The key, again, is to not hide anything. Be up front with who you are (a church planter, a Christian, a Jesus follower) and what you are doing (starting a new church). Take the mystery out of the picture. Give clear invitations to learn more. This provides people the opportunity to grow into becoming Persons of Peace. My experience has been that most of the Persons of Peace with whom I have worked didn't come fully engaged. They learned about me and about my mission over time and with exposure. God gradually formed them into Persons of Peace. I pray you keep your eyes open for those budding Persons of Peace in your community, your life, and your ministry. Receive them with joy. They are God's gifts to you for His glory.
Start with the end in mind (Stephen R. Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change ) We could also start with Genesis 1. As God "in the beginning" forms creation there was, as Paul intimates, a plan for creation conceived and carried out by Jesus, the one by whom all things were created (Colossians 1:16). What both the Bible and Stephen Covey reflect is the idea that something does not come from nothing. There must be something--a conception, an idea, a vision, a dream--that gives rise to the creative event. That idea is the formative essence of vision. It's well documented that church planters need to be vision casters, people who are able to see so clearly what does not yet exist that others are willing to commit themselves to bring that thing (a new church) about. We feel the idea of vision creation so important that it is one of the central pieces we look for in our church planter assessment (Discovery Lab). We truly believe Charles Ridley is right when he lists vision casting as a knock factor.  In personality theory the Myers-Briggs concept of iNtuition is important. People with the N as their second letter in the MBTI four letter sequence (example ENTP). Aubrey Malphurs lists four MBTI types as strong indicators for church planting success: ENTP, ENTJ, ENFP, and ENFJ. All of them have the iNtuition aspect in their personality. In the DiSC behavioral assessment it is the high DI combination, the Influencer, that tends to have most success in planting new churches. We look to these two instruments to give us starting points for vision casting. But what then? How does vision really form that is so compelling that even the planter is willing to run the risk of failure just to have the opportunity to see something happen? We have found Will Mancini's Kingdom Concept a valuable conceptualizing tool for vision development. Mancini sees vision lying at the intersection of Apostolic Esprit, Local Predicament, and Collective Potential. You can download his chapter to get the fuller description of these. Here let's make it even more simple: The planter's call is the fountain of God's vision At Kairos we speak of the planter's call as consisting of 3 P's: 1. People. We know that planters are people who love a specific group of people whom God has placed on their heart. Planters love these people so much they are willing to pursue them, seek them out, live among them, and love them. In some respects the People aspect of the call is like the Kingdom Concept's collective potential. A clear, relevant vision is built on knowing the people. Some basic tools you can use to learn your people better are the NAMB Demographics Guide, focus groups, and Conversation and Cuisine events. 2. Place. These people live in a specific place. This Place is not just geographic, it is psychographic--the personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles of the people who live in their community. The Place contains the ideas of Mancini's local predicament. We recommend planters construct a Community Map to help them learn and understand their community. Learn the boundaries and markers of your community that define what it is and both attracts and repels people. 3. Passion. Vision expresses passion; it embodies and gives to passion. Passion is what people feel as the planter casts vision and lets them see something that makes them wish they could experience that new church in reality. It's the passion that releases the energy it takes to do the day to day grunt work that is the building blocks for success. Passion is similar to the Apostolic Esprit. For planters, look back at your Discovery Lab report. We've given you a lot of reflection in that document. You can also see your Myers-Briggs, DiSC and results of your planting Initial Self Assessment for planters. The Kairos Strategy Lab is the place where we help planters move their vision from their heads and hearts onto paper where others can see it too. The Kairos Strategy Lab Workbook will guide you through the preparation process to get your vision ready so God can use what he has put on your heart to bring about a new church where people can experience His great salvation.
Kairos coaches around three seasons of planting:
Most planters are ready to move from the Groundwork to the Launch season in about a year. By this time he should have his vision developed, his funding in place, have a good support and prayer team, and be in a good coaching rhythm. At this point the planter has developed his root system for the new church. Now it's time to move into the next season of planting: Launch.  We're making two primary assumptions for the Launch phase. One, that the model for the new church will be congregational, this means larger than the single cell, family style context of a house or "organic" church. The goal is to get the new church above the crowd point of 80 people at its launch so it will have the resources to grow. Two, the church will have two primary structural components: missional communities for discipleship and service and a central worship experience for vision and energy. It's the gravitational effect of these two structures that provide the staying and growing power for the new church. These two assumptions define the goal for the Launch phase: launching the regular worship experience in a way that allows it to average 100+ attendees at its first anniversary. There's one other assumption we're making in the Launch season: you won't have 100 people you can migrate immediately to jump start the church. If you have a mother church that can do that for you--go for it! Don't be shy. But most planters are going to have to build from the ground up; you can't count on a "just add water" approach for instant church. The five tasks of Launch season are designed to help you start a church from scratch. Look at the photo above and let's briefly run through each piece.
A key to your church's health and success is financial integrity and stability. The basic steps to do this are: 1) develop a 2-person financial team, 2) use Quickbooks online with a good chart of accounts, and 3) open your church bank account. Kairos will train your financial team and get you started down the right path towards financial integrity.  Church planters tend not to be detail people. They tend to think big picture. Church planters also tend to "hope" that the finances will take care of themselves. Yet handling money is a critical aspect of leadership for a new church plant. Consider the care and attention Paul gave to the task of caring for church offerings: “We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men.” (2 Corinthians 8:20-21 NIV) The second major launch task is developing a healthy financial team that will manage the offerings of your team and fledgling church with integrity and capability. Our experience is that this is the first major leadership task in starting a new church that requires the planter to delegate authority while maintaining accountability. While you will not be the one who does the actual accounting work you will be the one responsible to see that this work is done well. We recommend you start with the process outlined by Gary Rohrmayer in FirstSteps. Your financial team, at least at the beginning, should consist of two people: 1) a financial secretary who receives the offerings and records them and 2) the treasurer who distributes. The financial secretary works with the income while the treasurer works with the expenses. Both work with the financial records. Kairos will help you set up your chart of accounts. We'll also get you started using Quickbooks online version and train your team how to keep your church books. Your task is to identify the two people who will form your financial team and organize a meeting with our Kairos staff so we can help you get on the right track. You will also need to open a church bank account. This will require a number of steps which include filing Articles of Incorporation and church by-laws with your State, holding a meeting to elect your secretary and treasurer, and developing a process for your seed team to make their tithing offerings to the church. Download from the Kairos website the step-by-step Incorporation Guide. It will lead you through your church incorporation process. Remember, the tithes and offerings of your seed team are your church's primary source of working funds. While you may receive your income from external sources, from the very beginning it is important that your people know they support the work and needs of the church through their generosity. Build a strong financial DNA and you are well on your way to starting a church where generosity is the norm.
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