What Sovereign Grace looks for in a church planter
Sovereign Grace is “a family of churches passionate about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are devoted to planting and supporting local churches, with a strong doctrinal basis that is evangelical, Reformed, and continuationist.” Outside of their church polity (elder-rule), I’m a proponent of everything that they do. Dave Harvey, who heads up their church planting efforts, recently blogged about their “governors—things that help us pursue opportunities at the speed limit our values will allow.” The first governor is the qualified guy
What do we mean by a qualified man? A qualified man is one who has sensed a clear and enduring call to plant a church. But there’s more. That sense of call has been confirmed by mature leaders who know the man, warts and all. A qualified man is revealed by the grace on his life. How do we know if there’s grace? Because there are character and abilities that match the eldership qualifications of 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, and other passages. And not just to attain them, but to maintain them as well.
In Sovereign Grace Ministries, we organize these qualities around five essential criteria, which we call the “e5.” First and primarily there is preaching. That’s the BIG E. A qualified guy must be an expositor who knows how to handle God’s Word in clear and compelling manner. In our experience, the training and evaluation involved in this component just takes time. It slows the process. We realize that dialing this one back, maybe just downgrading from expository skill to sensible Bible teaching, would speed things up considerably. But we’re called not just to win converts but to make disciples. Disciple making requires exposition.
It doesn’t end there; here are numbers two through five. The qualified man displays (2) a leadership gift, (3) faith towards God, (4) a shepherd’s heart that cares for people, and (5) a determination to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5).
Those are outstanding qualifications and thoroughly biblical. As I look towards planting, the primary “e5″ that I’m lacking is the preaching one. Lord willing, there will be opportunities possibly at Grace or other local churches to preach. It’s an area that I need to grow in and to do that you need experience.