Rethink Mission: Inspiring gospel-centered missional churches

Next month, I get to work with a growing church to help them develop a program for church-planting interns – with the end goal being to start new churches. Granted, what is now a large church was a church plant at some point, so church-planting is a part of who they are.

You don’t have to have church-planting already in your DNA, however, to become a church-planting church. Let’s say that you pastor an established, traditional church & have never planted a new church or supported a church planter. Where do you start?

Meet area planters
If you’ve always been a pastor in an existing, established church situation, get to know church planters in your area. Take a couple out to lunch.  Most likely, they’re poor & hungry.  Church planters often feel like established church leaders are distrustful of them and their motives. Listen to planters in your area & their heart for reaching new people. Be available for conversation, prayer, and networking.  I hear story after story of church planters that are new to an area and can’t get pastors of established churches to even return a phone call.

Do a study
You and your church need to first believe in the importance of planting new churches on local soil.  If you expect some of your key leaders to be resistant on this issue – do a short study together on the importance of planting new churches, specifically in Western areas.  Tim Keller’s paper, Why Plant Churches or Glenn Smith’s article Does the U.S. Need More New Churches? are both great & simple places to start. The key leaders in the church, especially those who set vision and budgets need to be convinced of Keller’s words: “The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city.”

Budget appropriately
This is where it gets hard, and is the first place that established churches turn back from becoming church-planting churches. If you are going to plant churches, you have to set aside money in your budget for it – and that most likely will mean taking some percentage from money that you already give to foreign missionaries or to your denomination’s missions sending agency.

Vision from the pulpit
Whenever the primary teacher talks about the mission of the church, evangelism, or engaging the world with the gospel, make sure that you tell your people that a key piece of your missional strategy is planting new churches. Putting it out there strong will help hold you accountable to your new vision. “We are not quite sure how we’re going to do it – but a key piece of us reaching the world with the gospel is that we are going to start planting new churches – right here. There are unreached people groups right under our noses -  and the best way to reach them is to plant new churches.”

Join a church-planting network
In addition to having access to church-planting resources, when you as an existing church join a church-planting network like The Acts 29 Network or ARC you signify to potential planters around you that you are serious about church-planting. Young potential planters are already watching these networks because of their success in planting. When you join up, potential planters in your area will start to look to you for church-planting support & internship opportunities.

Begin a church-planting internship
The next difficult step is to start an intern program for potential church-planters. Doing an intern program can cost less than you think, but is likely to be more time intensive than you first realize. A few brief thoughts on internships:

Have interns raise their own support
If a potential planter can’t raise support for a part time salary, how will he ever raise money for a new church? If his own grandma doesn’t trust him, why should you? You could consider a stipend for a candidate with a lot of experience, if the candidate has a family (with multiple kids) to support, the cost of living in your area is exceptionally high (like NYC), or if the candidate does not come from a culture with an assumed network of churches, friends & family who can back a pastor financially (generally non-white or non-western.)

Assess potential interns well
Two mistakes here: 1.You set the bar too low (ie you accept anyone who remotely expresses a desire in church planting). If this happens, even a year (or two) of training at your church will not produce of guy that you will want to plant, and you may end up sending out someone who never should have planted in the first place. 2. You set the bar too high (ie you expect him to already be network assessment ready). This is not your network’s complete, rigorous assessment – this is your own pre-assessment. You’re looking for someone who has the raw DNA to be a church planter but still needs 1-3 years to work on theology, a marital communication issue, or needs to have more teaching & leading experience. They do have to demonstrate character, entrepreneurial skill, and a sense of calling – the three things that I think are impossible to teach.

Mentor interns well
A lot of fast growing churches bring on interns without any sense of what do with them. Sure, the “grab an oar, let’s get to work” mentality is great – and gives you some needed hands on deck – but at some point interns need: 1. theological shaping, 2. real mentoring 3. leadership opportunities where they can safely fail.  Also, with potential church-planters, give them opportunities to start something.

Send them out with money & people
If an intern goes through your whole process, has learned from your church & added value to your church, has passed your assessments, and responded & learned from your critiques & coaching, then be prepared to enthusiastically send them out with money and people.  If they really do have entrepreneurial & teaching skills, strong character and a good family – then by all means, put your money where your mouth is.

Show your congregation
Celebrate church planters – both those you send out and those you support. Have them preach in your church (if they can handle your pulpit). Lay hands on them and publicly pray for them. As they’re planting, find out the good stories and share those with your people. Regularly show pictures of your church planters just like you might your overseas missionaries. Let your congregation celebrate God’s work among these new churches.

These are initial thoughts on becoming a church-planting church. Much more can and has been said. What are your thoughts?

Tags: church planting, leadership

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 2:48 pm and is filed under church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.