From our Advanced Leadership Forum (click here to join)

If you were going to plant a church for a denomination:

 

1. What kind of support is crucial?

2. What kind of support is ideal?

 

By support, I mean more than money.

 

Response from Bill Tenny-Brittian

1. What kind of support is crucial?

[Bill] (1) Honest and ruthless Church Planter Assessment. Most denominations have read Ridley’s Assessment materials, but then they totally ignore what they’ve read. The key to most denominational church starts is (a) Does this person have a seminary education? and (b) Is this person still breathing? If the answer to questions A and B are yes, they YOU QUALIFY. Successful Church Planters are RARE. Church planting is TOUGH, LONELY, DEMORALIZING, and the greatest job on earth…if you’re called to it and if you have the temperament, backbone, motivation, drive, energy, training, etc. When we were assessed as church planters, it was also mandatory that the spouse was assessed. If the wannabe planter doesn’t have a spouse who’s also called…literally…to the work, then you can count on either a church plant that’s going to fail or a marriage that’s going to fail (which, in most cases, means the church plant ultimately fails). Denominations that are serious about church planting will either ruthlessly assess their planters and gently, but firmly, reject the VAST MAJORITY of candidates or they’ll pay an assessor to do the “dirty work” for them. And yes, EBA does Church Planter Assessments.

 

(2) Effective Church Planter’s Training. In general, the “training” the denominations offer is a joke. They’ve virtually all visited CMTC’s Church Planting Bootcamp and tried to “duplicate” it for the Mainline. The problem is, CMTC has and continues to train literally thousands of church planters and are more up-to-date than virtually any other organization for what’s working and what’s not in church planting. Their training is complete, up-to-date, cutting-edge, damned hard work, and effective. Denominations that are serious about church planting will send their church planting candidates to CMTC Bootcamp (or another training organization that has a track record).

 

(3) A real coach. Church planting coaches provided by the denomination tend to be either over-worked church planters (all effective church planters are overworked) and don’t have the time, energy, or even acumen for taking on the role of a coach; or they’re experienced pastors who are older, wiser, and in general never planted a church and are clueless as to the process, let alone what it takes to plant a church. I’ve spoken with many denominational church planters and asked them about their coaching and 100% so far have said, “It’s a joke.” A good coach has trained as a coach. They may well have some experience in church planting, but ultimately what really counts is that they understand church planting (and keep apprised of the newest developments) and they are a well-trained practicing professional coach. Just like you don’t send a little-league dad/coach to the Majors, you don’t send a “pastor” to try and coach the most important and one of the most difficult jobs in the church. Denominations that are serious about church planting will ensure the planter has an professional proactive effective coach for at least three years. And yes, EBA offers professional coaching and coaches.

2. What kind of support is ideal?

Response from Bill Tenny-Brittian

[Bill] You won’t like this, Andrew. Ideally, the denomination ought to  fund the church plant, not the church planter. Most effective church planters raise their own funding. Now, I know that’s not a “done thing” in the Mainline, but then, look at the Mainline’s deplorable track record. For instance, last time I spoke with Jerad Roth, the former leader of the Four Square Church Planting Initiative (they reorganized their whole denominational structure in less than 5 years to become a denomination focused on church planting), in general they were providing $3,000–$5,000 per year for a church planter. After that, the planter had to raise up their own funding. All this follows the principle in Matthew 10 and Luke 10—you raise up your support from the harvest. If a church planter has to provide for themselves from the very beginning, or nearly at the very beginning, they won’t spend a year “looking for a site” and a couple of years getting their core group together so they can “start something.” They’ll hit the road running. HOWEVER, this is ONLY possible when the above three Support Criteria have been FULLY implemented. You’d be surprised how few people are “called” to be church planters when they find out they have to raise their own funding. But if someone is CALLED to be a church planter, they’ll start a church funded or not. I know. I’ve been there, done that.

 

In reality, currently denominations are pretty ineffective in starting churches. It really is much more effective, in general, when either individuals or local churches decide to start new churches. Let me give you an example of “Ideal.” Mississippi Blvd. Christian Church is a large church in Memphis. They do two things well. They are well-known for apprenticing and mentoring new leaders. MANY of their former staff (apprentices) have become successful church planters and church-growth pastors. And second, they are well-known for their commitment to church planting—which they do WELL. When they decide to plant a new church they raise up a leader from within and work with him/her for several years. Then, when they deem the person ready (and they’ve been well assessed through the years), the church commissions the new planter and “gifts” her/him with 50–60 of their very BEST church leaders, elders, teachers, evangelists, etc. to go and start the new church. These aren’t “Loaners”; these people are called to the new church plant and go to plant the new church with the new church planter. They are invested. And they invest. When Stacy Spencer was sent to start New Directions Christian Church, his first Sunday’s launch saw over 400 in attendance…and the numbers didn’t drop, like in most church plants. They just kept on going, and going, and going.

That’s Ideal.

 Response

Sometimes I wonder whether taking a group from an existing UMC would be helpful or not.  I fear the DNA that will come along with.

 Our annual conference just pulled the plug on a new church start not too far from where I live.  The planting pastor was frustrated about the lack of support from other UMCs in the area.  Other UMCs wouldn't even share names and addresses of visitors, let alone give them people.

Response from Bill Tenny-Brittian

[Bill] Here’s the key difference between getting a core from local “churches” and from the Mother Church (such as Mississippi Blvd. Christian). The folks who come from Mississippi Blvd. are (1) KEY leaders. They’re not the rejects. Not the disenfranchised. Not the looking for something different. They’re trained leaders who are as committed to the new church plant as the pastor is. They’re there to make it happen. (2) These leaders already carry a healthy DNA. They are committed to “whatever it takes,” even to the point of leaving a church they love in order to start a new, effective church in another part of town. Some of the leaders actually begin going to this church and have to drive past Mississippi Blvd to get to the new church plant. THAT’S a DNA I would want in my church.

Let’s face it, the Pastor Developer (PD) model, as practiced by most mainline churches, has reached its “End of Life” (a Microsoft term meaning it’s past its usefulness and will no longer be supported…think FrontPage). Gathering a core of “Christians” from other churches…often a borrowed core…does indeed bring a polluted DNA. The fact that the pastor of the closed church start was “frustrated about the lack of support from other UMCs in the area” is pretty indicative of the Mainline PD model. Instead of focusing on reaching the unreached, the pastor was most likely focused on trying to build a “core” group from existing Christians. That almost never works anymore. Again, we have to look at Matthew 10 and Luke 10 to get a clue about what kind of church planting works in a pre-Christian era. You go to a town with a team (like, 2 people as a team) and you raise up new leaders from the harvest. You don’t go door-to-door looking for already-Christians to build with. Besides, new converts are way more effective evangelists and come with way less baggage. And we look at passages like Acts 16:13: go to where the spiritually hungry are and build a core from the harvest there. Either way, the future of church planting isn’t patching together a team of barely-committed Christendom retreads and launching a “cool” worship service. The future of church planting is found in the models of the past. Notice I wrote models. There is no one best model. And even the PD model can work in some situations…but not likely in the Bay Area where there are far fewer committed and practicing Christians per capita than almost anywhere else. With that said, though, most of the effective church plants today are focusing on small groups, prayer, and evangelism.