Process for Parenting/Partnering of New Churches

Step 1 – Preliminaries

• Learn about how your church could plant a new church without it negatively impacting your own church.

• Schedule a time for your leadership to spend 2 hours with a church planting director to help process information. After subsequent processing, make a decision to consider looking at planting a new church.

• Recommend an intention to your congregation. Supply adequate information through a communication process. If needed, get congregational approval.

Step 2 – Preparation

• Begin discussing with the church planting director the ‘where, when and how’ of a church planting project.

• Communicate with partner churches and form a church planting task force made up of people from all the partner churches that meets with the Church Planting Director.

• Develop a specific timeline for this church plant. (The dates can be adjusted as God begins opening doors or as He slows down the process.)

• Communicate to congregation the key elements of the church plant.

Step 3 – Proceed

• Actively work with the Church Planting Director and the Covenant on searching for the right church planter. In the ECC, church planters must pass an AssessmentCenter.

• The Parent/Partner Churches, the Covenant, and the Conference must all agree on the selected candidate.

• Church Planter and/or Church Planting Director hosts a core group training seminar for leaders from the partner churches and for any interested, potential core members.

• Develop plans for supporting the church plant: Prayer, Fishing License, Parts (equipment), Participation in Outreach Events, along with…

• Develop a plan to support the new church over 3-years in collaboration with the ECC and Conference. These “3-streams” of support equal $120,000 spread over 3-years with each stream contributing $40,000 each.
  • In addition to financing, the parent church encourages people to leave to help start the new church, sends prayer support, and assists in other ways.
    • Some of the most aggressive parent churches assign 10% or more of their church budget to domestic church planting. (Viral Churches, Ed Stetzer, 2010, p 149. Based on a comprehensive study of denominations and church planting activity in the US)
  • The Covenant and Conference provide other resources including: assessment, training, on-going coaching, a computer and financial software, etc.

Step 4 – Parent/Partner – Start of New Plant

• Church Planter arrives.

• Fishing License, Funding plan, Launch sequence and Partner/Parent—Daughter expectations are all in place.

• Stage 1 begins for the new church—the Core Group Gathering state. The emerging core group of Mission-minded believers is taking shape and new people outside the parent/partner churches are beginning to jump on board.

• Parent/Partner Churches hold a Commissioning Service just before the new church begins to meet weekly.