HOW CAN WE BETTER SEND OUR PLANTERS OUT?

By Randy Knutson, Church Planting Coordinator in the Western Vineyar Region (Southern California). Randy has assessed over 800 church planting couples. His home church is Desert Springs Church, Palm Desert, Calif. (760) 779-8284, email rknutson@earthlink.net - website: http://home.earthlink.net/~rknutson/index.html

 

1. DEMONSTRATE THE SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY: One of the first messages Bert Waggoner gave our Movement was on generosity. During our regional meeting, we came to a unanimous decision that we need to better address how we send and receive our church planters better. We felt that the regional leader and church planting coordinator should be at the commission services of as many planters as possible.

    1. HOW TO EXIT A MINISTRY PROPERLY

Prior to the church planter’s commission service we encourage our church planters to do a closure paper as part of their exit interview. This is an intentional way to extract lessons the planter learned while at the mother church. It also is an invaluable way to gather honest feedback from its leaders for their professional development as a new lead pastor.

This information in turn is used during their commissioning service to blessing the church for what he has learned from them. Here are some guidelines for church planters to consider when exiting a mother church.

3. WHAT IS INVOLVED IN A CLOSURE PAPER?

a. Journal Lessons Learned: The planter journals the lessons they learned from their current ministry both positively and negatively to acknowledge their growth issues. They examine the trends to determine who imparted wisdom to them and what skills they learned along this path. The potential planter asks their key mentors for an honest evaluation of their performance and for wisdom on how to improvement in their next assignment.

b. Get Feedback from Mentors and Critics: In writing their draft, we encourage the potential planter to find critics in their past that have not always agreed with them throughout their work period and ask for their honest evaluation. It will leave a good image in their critic’s mind about you and many times critics possess some of the best information for our future growth. The key point here is to not defend one’s actions but listen to others’ input.

c. Organize lessons learned to share with the church: The planter will write a closure paper blessing those that supervised them and acknowledging what God has taught them while at this position. It is also a tool to use to share with the new core group for how God is processing them as an introduction.

4. OTHER ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN EXITING AS A CHURCH PLANTER

a. Be careful not to be too inappropriately happy: Your departure is like a child going off to marriage. There are various feelings involved in the departure for everyone. It is always more exciting for the one leaving than the one staying. It is okay to acknowledge these emotions. There are relationships that are separating and some grief is natural.

b. Be invested in the Mother Church until you leave: You need to be totally present and involved in the sending church until you are released. As a senior man overseeing a planter, I would ask myself: "Are they just using us to go do their own thing or are they really here? Do they love our people, and are they adding something to this church too?" We ask our church planters to replace themselves before they leave. This involves blessing the growth and attendance of the mother church as well as taking core people out to the plant.

c. The planter is responsible for pastoring the comments of his core group as they leave: It is the departing pastor’s job to preserver unity and keep peace as the separation begins to transpire. It is a chance for gossip, slander, and Satan to play games. Scripting out what to say and not to say is important so people do not use their unfulfilled expectations or disappointments to take revenge on the sending church and over recruit inappropriately.

d. What about timing? If things are financially difficult for the sending church be careful. Too much transition can be unhealthy for some churches that have had too many staff exiting in a short amount of time or have a building program going. Conversely, many planters are held hostage by a stingy sending church that refuses to release them. Our goal is to create a win/win for both. When this happens it is exhilarating. You need to ask what does this process do for your team if they practice the above exercise. How will this effect the new church DNA?

5. ORDINATION SERVICE: It has been our tradition to ordain the senior man going out to plant. This kind of event has been done with mixed results in the past. It is either a very meaningful or a thrown together without much thought. We want to model intentional, healthy sending. Therefore, we are asking the sending pastor, elders and people that worked under the exiting pastor to bless them with a slide show of their ministry, gifts and words of encouragement prior to their ordination. After the ordination part, we usually let the church planter preach or say good-bye. Then all the people going with the new church and the gifts or offering the mother church is going to give is brought forward for prayer and blessing. After the commission service, we party. Everyone gets closure in this process.

6. OFFICALLY RECEIVE THE NEW CHURCH INTO THE AREA: We are beginning to ask the receiving Vineyard closest to the new the church plant to publicly receive them in a public service. One way to welcome a new vineyard into your area is to pray, bless and when appropriate, and give them some type of gifts or gesture of good will and kingdom brotherhood. Again, the APC and CPC should attend and make heroes of those who go, send, and receive when possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AVC BENCHMARKS OF GROWTH:

Where are the existing plants you supervise now on our continuum?

 

POTENTIAL CHURCH PLANT: (Prior to First Year)

 

CHURCH PLANT CRITERIA: (Pre-Church Formation)

 

MISSION CHURCH CRITERIA: (First Year Target)

 

ESTABLISH VCF CHURCH: (Second Year Target)