The Church Planter's Marriage

Without a strong marriage the church plant fails, right?! I got a call from a church planter today and he was concerned about the health of his marriage. I remember the difficult times that my wife and I had when we were planting the church in Cicero. God's people really know how to stress a relationship. Learning to manage this is part of the spiritual disciplines necessary for success (see stetzers article on not losing your soul)

I remember people hating on my wife for trying to get me home from service before 11 on Wednesdays, or cutting short my "fellowship time" after a Saturday morning meeting at church. I regret that she had to bear the brunt of that abuse. (add to that that she didn't preach , play piano, or work with youth!)

I also remember that I was (am) hot headed and then I was young (no longer) and foolish (jury is out) and we often got ourselves in some great arguments. I recall throwing a Christian vinyl album out the window of my apartment... what a testimony! (It was Phil Keaggy!)We toughed it out and have a great marriage and 3 kids serving Jesus.

What have you done to guarantee a healthy marriage in your church planting experience? And have you noticed CDs don't fly into the street near as well as vinyl did?

mtg notes

Church Planting Focus Group Summation – January 13, 2009

1. each person shared their connect with planting.
2. two new church plants and planters shared their dream 1) South Loop – Doug Harris and 2) Arlington Heights -Mike Handler/Mark Larsen.
3. desire every other month meetings to keep this passionate
4. desire a website/blog and keeping the relationship tight between the region dreamers
5. desire national approach and system to planting from the General Council
6. Bootcamp with District investment for husband and wife is appreciated and helpful
7. Bootcamp suggestion was to add to it some current church planters (1-9 years) to help understand current conditions of planting: it would simply add to the good, encouraging veteran planters (ie. Planters 20 years ago). Great to get away and dream about it together. Coaches were encouragers and appreciated them.
8. District packet of information is not enough... relationship attached to the packet will help...but more system can help.
9. ideas to have a "menu" system with spirit led freedom and empowerment with expected strong relational connects to the planters from supporting churches
10. supporting churches want more influence in affirming an "A" type planter in addition to the tests, boot camp, etc.
11. seems to be a disconnect in that the churches needed to support a planter has the potential of no influence or determining input on whether the planter has what it takes.
12. must change the current perspective and environment to a inviting, welcoming, supporting system.
13. desire to eventually pursue planters from outside Chicago (colleges, other districts, etc.)
14. frustration with the current strategy in the financial support of the district
15. desire for larger amounts of gifts ($30,000, $50-$60,000, $100,000)....Ohio, Iowa ref.
16. desire for salary support not just building support
17. a need for the old paradigm to change of wanting only to invest in the brick/mortar and change to investing into the person/thus larger amounts that allow for salary
18. understanding exists that there must be accountability and that failures have happened in the past
19. $500/month is the same amount used for several years and $500 doesn't buy the same after 9+ years
20. Need to vary the amount of plant gifts due to some geographic locations are more costly
21. support the accountability to tithe, don’t understand the passing of checks in the mail regards tithe/monthly support
22. idea to allow planters to tithe with accountability to their church plant for x amount of years and possibly add a climbing scale back to full tithe to the district over x amount of years. (idea: first 3 years to the plant…graduating scale next 7 years back to full tithe to the district) - one shared people in plant that wanted credentials but didn’t want to hurt the church by not giving their tithe to the church
23. perception rose that district is worth $20 million due to the financial report (may need to clarify what is liquid and what is equity)
24. concern to sell off properties of closed churches to help plant new ones
25. find $100,000 plus from the current IDCAG budget
26. idea of having someone for the district – just for planting (full time, part time, contracted)
27. willingness to embrace other church planting groups strategy, ie. Arc

Expectations at the Launch

I got a call this morning from a church planter in Kentucky. They have put the last two months bills on their credit card, their core group had bailed on them, and they were throwing in the towel. The pastor and her husband are gifted people and anointed. They had a core group that committed to standing with them but when the winds started to blow they began to look back to the security, programs and safety of their previous (read Larger) churches. One thing I know they were lacking was a worship leader ( they were using CDs) but they also did have children's ministries in place. So I began to think ( which is unusual for me) what are the expectations of the adherents of a core group at the launch of the church?

The expense of the start up will be dramatically increased with these systems in place but won't the percentages of success be increased dramatically too? Is our reticence to have team ministry hindering our planting efforts more than we imagined?

Minimally shouldn't there be quality worship, child care and pulpit ministry as well as pastoral care?

Then I came across the following on the Converge site. This book excerpt addresses the launch plan

What exactly is a launch plan? There is no one standard definition. In Converge, we consider a launch plan to include two mandatory parts and an optional third part. These parts include:

Launch Plan / Church Plant Proposal - The terms launch plan and church plant proposal are often used interchangeably. At a minimum, a launch plan is in written form (clear and concise) and answers a number of basic questions including why you are planting, whom you are trying to reach, where the church will be located, who will do it with you, how much it will cost, how will it be funded, what kind of church it will be, how you will gather a core group, and the critical success factors. More detailed launch plans identify key strategy areas with associated action plans. We suggest working through your Philosophy of Ministry before finalizing your plan (see the free resources at www.newchurches.com for a template and guidelines on developing a written Philosophy of Ministry.
Action Checklist - A written list of actions to be completed during the pre-natal phase through launch. Ideally, each action includes a cost/budget, a date for completion, and a lead person or organization assigned responsibility for its completion. Some church planters turn the action list into an integrated schedule to show the interrelationships between actions (i.e. many actions need to be done in sequence). Converge comes with a built-in template action list of about 140 actions that all planters should use as a starting point in developing a custom action list. The action checklist is typically included as the first appendix to the launch plan.
Supplementary Information - Optionally, the planter may choose to attach additional appendices to the launch plan. These additional appendices may be used to communicate a wide range of information include a fundraising prospectus, demographic details, specific strategy plans (e.g. marketing, outreach, etc.).
Regardless of the form or length of your plan, consider the following questions when developing a plan:

Why start a new church?
Who is my target group?
What kind of church am I starting (Philosophy of Ministry - purpose, beliefs, values, governance philosophy, and priorities)?
Who am I going to do this with?
What specific things do I need to do?
When do I need to do them?
How much will it cost?
How will I fund it?
How can someone get involved?
We suggest that a launch plan include the following parts. Converge has these elements built in.

Executive Summary
Calling and Opportunity (Why are you planting?)
Roles, Responsibilities and Partners (Who am I doing this with?)
Philosophy of Ministry Elements (What kind of church am I starting?)
Target and Demographic (Who is my target group?)
Opening Day Expectations (What will the church look like on opening day?)
Planning Timeline (When will we do it?)
Key Strategies (How will we do it?) - suggested strategies to consider include staffing, prayer team, vision casting and communications, core group development, small groups, marketing, facilities, equipment, community networking, finance, outreach, demographics, and ministry teams. The launch plan can either note which strategies are being developed or incorporate the strategies
Funding / Finance (How much will it cost and how will I fund it?)
Next Steps (How can someone get involved?)
Detailed Action List (What specific things do I need to do?)

Will a launch plan unnecessarily constrain me?

The launch plan process never really ends as the launch plan is fluid and changing. It is important to issue a public version as a key transition point from planning and design of the new church to implementing the new church. Some planters get stuck in endless planning. The goal is to (1) have a clear vision based on a call from God, (2) document the actions necessary to get from where you are to where you feel God calling you to be on opening day, and (3) to work like crazy to get there. Converge helps you develop, continually adjust, and manage your launch plan. You are in no way constrained by the existence of a launch plan.

from Planting Fast Growing Churches by Dr. Stephen Gray

Pastor, Church Planter, Director of National Missions for the General Association of General Baptists and upcoming speaker for the National New Church Conference , Dr Stephen Gray brings this new research based book on the factors on what does and what doesn't help church plants succeed.


They explore the real differences between successful church plants and a struggling ones. They surveyed 112 church plants and found some surprising data. Some of the data confirmed long-held theories. Other findings were quite surprising. This book is a must-read for any church planter.

Illinois- Toxic for Church planters?

Perhaps the most difficult thing to swallow as an Assembly of God pastor in Illinois is that there are so pitifully few Church plants in the IDCAG. I conjecture that the reason for this is that Illinois has become a toxic environment for Church planters in the AG, especially so in the city of Chicago. In order for that to change it must be addressed.

I call the environment toxic because of the following reasons.
Despite statements to the contrary- church planting is on the back burner. As an outsider looking in one cannot help but notice that there are no church plants happening, there is little attention given to directing/coordinating church plants, and there is no recruitment for church planters. Currently I am unaware of any attempts to help church planters as they are coming out of our schools. Why couldn't we (IDCAG)pay their school loan payments as they are serving as church planters? This way if they are bivocational pastors they have one less bill to worry about. That moves Bible College Educated church planters toward Illinois. And it is less likely they will be wooed away by other church planting organizations (Many of which offer a salary of $30K for church planters)

There is an unwillingness to invest in the salaries of church planters.Due to a history of failed attempts to plant churches, we have grown gun-shy in investing in the salaries of laborers. I have heard it said that IDCAG would be "more comfortable in investing in buildings". Does this not communicate to the planters that they are not a valued asset? If you are about the failure rate then I suggest that you have little faith in the assessment process of the AG. If that is so then it must be changed too. In addition to supporting financially the pastor mentorships could be developed as well as oversight teams. The purpose would be to develop and encourage the planter in whatever way necessary.

The form(s) promoted for church planting are not contemporary.
These might have worked a while ago, but they were not without problems. Economic tension and spiralling costs of planting threatens the church planter with extinction. While I had very little financial support from IDCAG, I was able to work a trade and develop a business while planting. The economic pressure on the trades makes that less likely these days. So bivocational pastors are less workable than teams or other concepts. Our framework has to be flexible.

There is a general impatience with church plants. Church planting takes time. How many years does it take to raise up a strong self supporting and sending church. 5, 10, 15? The road is hard. The drumming sound from friend's and overseer's fingers on the desktop can add additional pressure.

We continue to emphasize the man versus the team.There is no Biblical justification for a church planting individual- rather they (in the Bible) planted in teams. Without going into the verses to cover this, it is likely that we will have to change our paradigm in order to be faithfully reaching the this world.

There must be an environment of support. Salary should be the beginning of support. Neighboring pastors in the region should be partnering at some capacity to insure the success of the plant and the planter. Why couldn't the local churches around the plant be a resource? Why is competition the model and not commaraderie?

There must be willingness to invest in "faithful men" who have the goods. Apostolic giftings aren't as rare as some think. But where they exist they must be nurtured. Instead of giving lip service alone to the 5 fold ministry we should be raising up apostolic planters who will develop networks of churches. Loyalty flows both ways. For the person who is supported on the plant, there will be more loyalty that flows back from them toward the brotherhood of believers that carried them.

Those are my thoughts. What do you think?