Church Planting That Works
I grew up in a church plant. My parents landed in Owosso, MI in 1976 where they worked at a small Christian College. At the time, the town of Owosso was incredibly racist. My father helped recruit students from all over the globe. We welcomed students from Africa, South America, Asia and so on (we had an incredible soccer team!). These young people would, like every other college student, walk downtown to eat dinner out. Many times, my parents would be called to the hospital to pick them up after being attacked just for the color of their skin. On top of this, many of the churches in town wouldn't let them worship for the same reason.
These situations lead my parents and other faculty and students to band together and form a new church. At first, we met in each other's living rooms. I remember warm summer Sunday's where we'd be sitting in drive way's singing worship songs. Over time, this "Community Church" joined the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and it continues to this day.
So I guess you could say that Church Planting was in my blood. I launched my church plant out of my living room back in 2003. We grew many other churches in living rooms all around Michigan and called ourselves "Tapestry." A couple years later, we joined the RCA who were looking to branch out their multiplication efforts. We have learned many lessons in RCA Multiplication over the years, many the hard way.
I wanted to write out some of those lessons we've learned in what makes church plants that work.
1. Contextulization Matters - while it is possible to "parachute" into a strange town and culture with no connections, it is rare for that planter to really succeed. We planted a series of these kind of plants 9 years ago and all but one still exist. It really helps with the planter has connections to their local community and understands how to contextualize the Gospel for that particular community. If you need to learn about your context, ask Chad to run you a MissionInsite report, and go into your neighborhood and get to know your business leaders, your restaraunts, your neighbors...etc...
2. Discipleship over Worship - too often, the church planter wants to rush into launching Sunday morning worship. If you've been paying any attention to what I've been teaching, you'll know that I believe we've misunderstood the importance of Sunday morning worship as the "main thing" a church does! We are called to make disciples, not to host killer worship services. Not that they don't matter, just that they are secondary to making disciples. I recommend planters wait 1 year to launch worship services and after they have multiplied discipleship small groups throughout the community. When you have rapidly multiplying small groups in place, you already have a church. Bringing those communities together to worship is fairly easy. Launching disciple making small groups out of a church that only worships together once a week is much harder.
3. Apprentices are key - We should NEVER do church planting alone. The moment we are launching a church plant, we ought to have an apprentice planter with us so we may prepare them to launch the next church within the next three years. Your planter apprentice needs to experience every part of leading a plant right by your side. Remember, before you send them out to plant, they must have their next apprentice with them!
4. Money, Money, Money - We used to overfund church plants, and that lead to more failure than we wanted. When we overfund a church plant up front, they lose the opportunity to learn how to grow healthy givers as disciples. In today's economy, church planters are more than ever launching as bi-vocational or co-vocational pastors. This isn't any longer seen as a detriment, but rather helps the pastor see the need to develop their ministry team and helps the church help the pastor do the work of ministry faster. It also matter how you budget. You need to make sure to set aside a portion of your budget every month to invest in the next plant!
5. Churches Plant Churches not the denomination - One HUGE lesson we've learned over the past 10 years was churches are the ones that plant churches, not the denomination. Healthy things multiply naturally, and healthy churches should multiply as well. For too long, we had this idea that our denomination and Classis' were responsible for planting. This hampered our churches from growing and multiplying healthily. You should be birthing or helping to birth a church every 3-5 years.
6. Leadership Teams are Crucial - One of the earliest things church planters need to build is a healthy leadership team. You have to find healthy elders and deacons who are gifted to lead children's minstries, student ministries, worship, technology, marketing...etc...etc...The sooner you have leaders deployed to oversee the key areas of your church the better, and you should never launch your church before you have your team in place!!!
7. Balance Matters Too - Too often church planters burn out because they can't separate work from home. It's critical that your spouse is not only bought into the plant, but taken care of and prioritized. A healthy church culture comes out from a healthy home culture. Your kids and spouse need to feel like they are more important to you than your church...because they are. Look for ways to date your spouse often. Make sure to keep your days off and don't break that rule.
8. Spiritual Practices Lead to Effectiveness - don't stop the basic practices of faith that made you into the planter you are. Your day should begin with one on one time with God the Father in Prayer and Scripture. Make sure to keep practicing your times for retreat, for growth, for connectedness with God. When the time comes that you are exhausted and on autopilot, your habits will come out. Make sure you have these practices mastered.
9. Vision must Remain Focused - Every leader and member of your plant must know the vision of the church by heart. They should get sick of hearing it, and be able to recite it on an elevator ride. Isaiah tells us that without vision the people perish. If you look at that Hebrew word for "perish" the connotation gets even darker. A proper translation may read, "Without vision, the people turn on one another and murder each other." Yikes! The Vision that God gave you for this church must stay laser focused.
10. Plant, Water, Transplant, Repeat - Every plant goes through cycles. We plant the seed, care for the soil, watch the growth and as the roots grow, we must transplant the plant into a bigger holder if we want to see real growth. We have to know the right time to multiply and the right time to weed the plants. What we can't do is maintain. Stagnation is a form of death. To see a multiplication movement, we have to be good gardeners.
Posted 12th November 2020 by Classis de las Naciones
