Strategies

Prayer: It is absolutely essential that we bathe every church plant in prayer. We affirm that it is God who is leading us in this ministry; therefore, it is God from whom we should seek our guidance and direction. We will lead our church in making every church plant a subject of focused prayer by our congregation. We will recruit people in our congregation to pray regularly for our new churches and their staff. In addition, every Church Planter and staff member of our new churches will be asked to recruit personal prayer partners to pray for them while involved in the church plant.

Partnerships: We value partnerships in church planting because we can be better stewards of God’s resources. Partnerships work well because of the synergy that flows out of several partners working together in harmony. Therefore, we will continue to seek partnerships with like-minded churches and church planting associations with a special emphasis to encourage other mega churches to participate in church planting partnerships.

Regional Focus: We will primarily focus on starting a movement of churches in a particular region or metro area. We will look for regions or metropolitan areas where there are a low percentage of churches compared to the population. We will also plan to stay in a region until church multiplication has begun. Our intention is to assist our church plants to start reproducing themselves before we refocus our attention on another region. Our strategy will be to plant a Regional Impact Church (RIC) that will act as the mother church and a strategic Church Planting Center (CPC) that will help facilitate future church plants in the region.

Reproducibility: Because the need for reaching people with the Gospel in North America is so great, we must create a strategy of church planting that will reach people more effectively and more quickly. We believe one important sign of a healthy church is to reproduce itself in daughter churches. In order to build a “movement” of church planting in the region, we expect each RIC and every other church started in the region to reproduce itself at least every 3 years. In addition, we will require every new church to commit 10% of their offerings to plant new churches, primarily within the region. Only in this way can we hope to move from “adding” a couple of churches each year to “multiplying” churches in America and throughout the world.

Coaching: Every church planter will have a coach to assist him as he develops his plan for the new church. Coaching provides accountability and an experienced mentor for new church planters. Coaches will help church planters sort through a mountain of information and provide wise counsel.

Assessment: Thorough skill and personal assessment is critical to choosing effective leadership. We will assess every church planter and other staff members carefully. The assessment will include skills for church planting, strength and health of the marriage relationship, and other critical success factors.

Training: We seek to give planters training that is practical and helpful. The key to this training will be on-the-job training of associate church planters within the context of our new churches. We will supplement that with special concentrated training both through the training centers and offsite when appropriate.

Leadership Development: We will need to raise up many of our own future church planters from within the new churches. In order to do this, we will attempt to encourage a culture of church planting in every new church.