If you follow this blog regularly at all, you know that church planting is one of the dominant conversations. Last fall I spent a large amount of time writing about re-imagining church planter training, etc. You can read some of those posts here.

The last few weeks I’ve had conversations with a number of different church planters, heads of church planting for denominations, trainers, etc. After some of those conversations, I am increasingly seeing these things as the most essential ingredients for a successful church plant:

1. Two year immersive training. If we are going to be planting churches that look quite different from models we’ve seen in the past using vehicles that are new and foreign to us like Missional Communities and Huddles, we will benefit from knowing how to use them before trying to plant. It doesn’t mean you can’t learn them while planting, but having done that personally, the odds are definitely against you. However, spending two years in a church using these vehicles, principles and methods already will decrease your learning curve significantly. And have talked to a good number of people and having done it myself, I don’t see how that can be achieved in less than two years. Good training is for the patient, yes?

1. Reproductive DNA of Discipleship and Mission from DAY ONE. Regardless of how you’re starting or what vehicles you use, you have to know in your gut that, going into it, you know how to pass on the DNA of discipleship and mission so that disciples who make disciples happens from day one. And you have to know that it works before you launch. There are going to be lots of places to make mistakes and plenty you have to figure out as you go, but this is one you want confidence in from the beginning. Your success is 100% dependent on your ability to multiply leaders.

1. Alternative economic engine. One of the most under-discussed items of church planting today is how the future of church planting will require wildly different funding streams than raising support and denominational giving. Sure, both of those will still be there, but certainly not in the amount that we see them now. Successful church plants will have an economic engine that helps fund the plant regardless of these other two realities. In the NT, we see churches funding themselves through GIVE, SHARE and MAKE. We’re doing the giving and the sharing well. It’s time to focus on the making. We need economic engines that can be used for these unique Kingdom ventures.

1. Pre-existing oikos of at least 15 adults. There seem to be two extremes that exist in church planting. Either it’s a couple that is parachuted into a place and they know no one, or it’s a bud off of a church or recruiting team of 40+ people who are the scaffolding who get the church off the ground and then leave the church. I’d like to suggest that successful church plants in the future will have, at the center of it, at least 15 adults who are acting as an extended family on mission together. But they will already know how to do that before launching the church. That oikos already exists. It’s amazing to see the gravitational pull an already-existing oikos has.

1. Look to 7 years as opposed to 1. The stats on church planting are well known: You need to get to 125 adults as soon as possible to be self-sustaining. If you don’t have that by Year 1, you’re pretty much toast. Granted, this is with a model of church planting that is all about putting as much time, energy and effort into a Sunday-centric experience of church on the front end that starts with the BIG LAUNCH. And on that day you’re hoping for 250 adults to show up because, statistically, you’re only keeping 50% of them after the first month. What I’d suggest is that if you build in a culture of replication where you are discipling people who make disciples and are multiplying leaders who know how to lead missional vehicles of 10, 50 or 100 people, you will be just fine! It just may take you longer to hit that tipping point.

1. An increased commitment to the work of the Holy Spirit. I don’t know what more I can say on this point other than to say my general observation is that most church planters (while never saying it) don’t believe the Holy Spirit is terribly necessary. Their strategy, after all, is good enough. What I’d say is that if they can accomplish it apart from the Holy Spirit, it isn’t Kingdom fruit and doesn’t really count for anything.

1. Don’t be married to ONE WAY or model of doing church. Every city, church planting couple, denomination, theological framework, etc is different. There are endless ways of planting a church and I’m increasingly convinced there isn’t a “right way” so much as there tend to be helpful models based on the types of city context and personal gifting. For instance (many of my friends in the missional conversation will probably revoke my membership for this), but I’m not convinced that for some church planters in some places, using a worship service as the primary starting point is the wrong way to go…as long as you have two years of immersive training, know how to reproduce discipleship and mission from day 1, have an alternative economic model, have a pre-existing oikos with you, a vibrant connection to the person and work of the Holy Spirit and are looking long term. That could really be the right way for some. I think increasingly it won’t be, but for some I think it is. But it just isn’t the only way and I can’t find any “one way.” I see commonalities in successful church plants…but it’s what I’m saying in this list. I’m not seeing any commonalities in models that are used.