Michael McKinley, who was sent out by Capital Hill Baptist Church to replant Guilford Baptist Church, has started to answer a series of questions about church planting on the 9Marks Blog. The first relates to the church planter and the sending church.

What should the relationship between the planter and the sending church look like (assuming the sending church is already on the field)?

It depends a little bit on the model that you are using for church planting.  If you are simply sending a guy out on his own with some financial support, then the relationship is fairly simple: the sending church provides funding, some expertise, accountability and encouragement for the planter.  Other than that, he is pretty much on his own.

I don’t think that’s the best model, however.  Ideally, church planting should be one healthy church “giving birth” to another healthy church from its own congregation.  When I planted from Capitol Hill Baptist, I spent time on the church staff doing regular pastoral ministry tasks.  This gave me a chance to know the church culture well and build relationships with people who became our church planting team.  The sending church invested a lot of money (in salary) and time (in allowing me to preach, teach, and minster) for which it received little direct benefit.  It was all aimed at getting the church plant launched in a healthy way.

It is important to make sure that you know in advance what is important to your church.  Presumably you like your model of church and want to plant another church that looks something like it.  I suppose you could try to plant a different kind of church (for example, a traditional church could plant a missional church in order to reach a different part of the community).  But you need to be OK with those differences up front.

So when I planted from CHBC, we had an understanding that the new church would be baptistic, reformed theologically, and congregational with plural eldership, and centered on expositional preaching.  Those things are important to CHBC, and so the elders rightly insisted that any church they planted have those characteristics.  You need to figure out what’s important to your church and work that out with the church planter.

That last paragraph is interesting in light of my current situation, where I aim to plant a church with different polity and policies than the denomination of Grace Ann Arbor, the Reformed Church in America. Thankfully, Sung has been cool with the differences, seeking to follow the model of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York – a commitment to planting biblically faithful churches, whatever form they may take.

Update: As of 10-13-2009, I’m no longer the Church Planting Resident at Grace Ann Arbor

I just posted Ed Stetzer’s training for Missional Small Communities, but what gets you to that point? A Core Team needs to grow together and closer to God. Here are the Stages of Growth that Austin City Life, planted by Jonathan Dodson, followed

1. Meals & Mission: time spent cultivating community over shared meals, missional conversation, and being on mission together socially and evangelistically.
2. Vision & Mission: time spent in community discussions around vision and values, while continuing to practice mission.
3. Commitment Night: an evening in which I gave a charge, we prayed for our city, had first communion over a meal, and celebrated God’s work in our Core Team.
4. Bible Study & Mission: spent time teaching through Luke-Acts, identifying the themes and challenges of gospel, community, mission.
5. Strategy & Missional Community: time spent in more strategic conversation and planning to be a church in the city and for the city through what came to be called City Groups (aka Missional Communities).
6. Low Profile Public Gatherings: our first public gatherings which included preaching and primarily built up the existing Core Team
7. High Profile Public Gatherings: our first attractional, public gatherings in a city centre location
8. City Groups Multiply: existing City Groups multiply through mission and leadership development

From Ed Stetzer, used during the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma’s One Day Event

Missional Leadership

1. Reconsideration of Leadership
   1. From superman to everyone
   2. From church to kingdom
   3. From me to we
   4. From personal power to people empowerment
2. Rejection of “Clergification”
   1. From three tiers to one mission
   2. From “called to the ministry” to “called to ministry”
   3. From “called to missions” to “sent on mission”
   4. From exceptional to ordinary
   5. From “priests” to a “priesthood of believers” codependence
3. Renewed focus on mission
   1. From “full service” to “simple mission”
   2. From “pay, pray, and get out of the way” to “join God on His mission”
   3. From decisionism to disciple making
   4. From “mission statement” to “Jesus mission”
      Luke 4
      Luke 19:10
4. Realignment of priorities
   1. God is a missionary god
   2. I personally join Him on mission – modeling
   3. I lead others to join Him on mission – leadership
   4. I equip others – multiplication

Some churches talk about “planting pregnant”, meaning that they are looking to plant another church even as they are a young church. Jonathan Dodson has compiled a helpful “list of factors to consider when planting a new church out of your existing church”. This is a good list to think through at Grace Ann Arbor, a replant itself,  looks to plant in the future.

1. Qualified Elder – Qualified pastor-elder who has demonstrated sufficient leadership in pastoring, missional commitment, applied gospel.
2. 5 Equippers – Sufficient expression of the five equippers of Ephesians 4 (prophet, teacher, evangelist, apostle, shepherd).
3. Number & Location of People – Critical mass of people in a geography far enough from our current Sunday Gathering.
4. Diversity of Spiritual Gifts – Good variety of spiritual gifts present in this critical mass.
5. Gift of Administration – an elder or co-leader with strong kingly gifts
6. Missional Health – an emerging critical mass that has demonstrated sufficient missional health
7. Gospel Health – an emerging critical mass that has demonstrated a good grasp of the gospel in theory and application.
8. Structural Health – a group of people who possess the requisite talents to facilitate healthy church structures (gatherings and missional communities)

The process of preparing a sermon is fascinating, at least to me. Josh Harris did a series on his blog last year where he got sermon notes / manuscripts from Mark Dever, Mike Bullmore, C.J. Mahaney, Ray Ortlund, Jr., Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, and his own. It’s a very interesting look into these men of God both pastorally and personally.

Mark Dever, Senior Pastor at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, recently posted the evolution of his outline for a message on Revelation 20. Seeing how his thoughts became clearer, and more concise, is helpful as I look toward a day of preaching regularly, Lord willing.

#1

20:1-3 The Binding of Satan
20:4-6 The Thousand Years—Christ Reigning with His Saints
20:7-10 The Final Defeat of Satan
20:11-15 The Final Judgment of the Dead

#2

20:1-3 God is Sovereign over Satan
20:4-6 Christians reign with God & Christ
20:7-10 Satan will appear to flourish but will be judged
20:11-15 The dead (and death!) are judged. Everyone will be judged

#3

Christians need not fear persecution 20:4-6
Christians need not fear Satan, 20:1-3, 7-10
Christians need not fear death, 20:11-15

#4

Christians need not be scared of Satan, 20:1-3, 7-10
Christians need not be scared of death, 20:4-6
Christians need not be scared of God, 20:11-15

#5

Don’t let threats intimidate you 20:4-6
Don’t let lies deceive you 20:1-3, 7-10
Don’t let death fool you 20:11-15

#6

Christians will be blessed 20:4-6
Satan will be defeated 20:1-3, 7-10
Everyone will be judged 20:11-15

#7

Common myths:
1) Christianity isn’t worth it. 20:4-6
2) Who’s to say? 20:1-3, 7-10
3) People get away with stuff 20:11-15

#8

Don’t worry 20:1-3, 7-10
Make sure 20:11-15
Praise God 20:4-10

I blogged two weeks ago about my journey into church planting and discussions I have been having with various denominations. The discussions have been illuminating and enjoyable.

Fast forward to last week. I was in Seattle at Re:Train learning about Spiritual Formation and Discipleship. It was an encouraging and challenging time and I’m excited for how God will work in me and the other students over the course of this year. One of the curious items last week was the number of posts in the “blogosphere” that seemed to cast derision onto Re:Train, the faculty, Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll, and Acts 29. They all came from websites associated in some way to Southern Baptists. It was quite disheartening and it sure seemed like Satan was working last week to stop the work of godly men and women to advance the Gospel.

Today, Scott Thomas, Acts 29 Director, posted an article detailing some of the back-and-forth. The clarification is important, if for no other reason that it destroys the straw men used in the other blog posts. My prayer is that this “controversy” stops, for the Devil would love nothing more than to continue this “death by ‘brothers‘”

Most recent @acts29 tweet is especially important to me as I investigate church planting in the SBC. Hopefully it’s less BI up here

RT @acts29: Can Acts 29 and Southern Baptists co-exist to plant churches together. Two very strong opinions on this. http://bit.ly/2IIu1S