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Re-imagining Church Planter Training | Part 3 | A Practical Proposal
Well, we’re plugging right along in this series for re-imagining church planter training.
Part 1 adressed what I believe are the biggest hurdles people are facing in church planting that are most directly connected to training.
Part 2 looked at what I believe are the key missing ingredients of training: Apprenticeship and Immersion.
And in this post I want to lay out a proposal of what I think church planter training can and should look like. But before we dive straight into that, let me give some context. If you are a regular follower of my blog you know that I’ve gone from being a teaching pastor/multi-site director/communications director for an attractional evangelical mega-church — to being the church planter of an entirely missional church. I walked through the difficulties of trying to create something I’d never really seen or experienced first hand. Every issue, barrier, frustration and concern I wrote about in the first post are not only the things I’ve seen in the at least 50 church planters I’ve coached…but it’s my story as well. I’m not writing as a detached observer. I’m writing as someone who has lived the triumphs and failures of planting a church.
Why do I tell you all that?
Because I’m about to make what could feel like a pretty radical proposal for church planter training. Let me unequivocally say that it’s actually NOT radical or revolutionary (I’m simply borrowing a page out of how we’ve trained missionaries for quite some time). But I don’t want this proposal to feel divorced from reality. There are things here that may, at first, seem like pipe dreams — but I assure you it will be simpler and less painful to invest the time to learn on the front end and plant successfully. I say this as someone who has planted a church, is coaching people who are in the thick of, am regularly asked my advice on this subject and am looking to create the proposal I’m proposing!
So bear with me. It may seem off the wall, but I really don’t think it is. And if you stick with me throughout the rest of the series, I’ll explain how I think we can make this a reality for aspiring church planters.
In quick bullet points (to be followed by further explanation) is what I’m suggesting:
- Church planter/family spends two years in a church who is doing close to what they would like to see their church doing, immersing themselves in that context and being discipled by someone who is an “expert” in doing discipleship and mission.
- The church planter leaves that two year training process knowing how to do what they are going to do. It’s not theory, it’s already reality for them.
- During that two year process they learn a bi-vocational skill that will allow them to make a good living for their family and has the flexibility necessary to plant a church and have a family life. This could greatly alleviate the serious financial pressure that comes with planting a church.
1. Church planter training should help you find a church that is already doing something close to what you envision your future church doing. An aspiring church planter should be apprenticed to someone who is an expert in what they want to do (competency) and to someone who’s life looks a lot like Jesus (character). I don’t care if it’s a network of Missional Communities or house churches or 24 hour missional prayer rooms or a drum church. The “type” of church doesn’t matter. The principle still stands: Find someone who is an expert and become an apprentice to the character and competency of that person and community (i.e.be discipled by them). As Malcolm Gladwell says in Outliers: “put in your 10,000 hours.”
2. Spend about 2 years there. I don’t think this can be done in a shorter amount of time. You need to see the life cycle of a missional community (a group of 20-50 on mission together) from beginning to end — launching it, finding Persons of Peace, growing it, seeing it stabilize, discipling people, seeing others come to faith and then multiplying it. That life cycle takes at least 18-24 months. I can remember, like a bolt of lightning, after about 23 months of engaging with Missional Communities and Huddles when I realized that I was finally good at it…that I finally knew what I was doing. Living it first hand before planting will allow you to recreate it in your own mission context, so I promise you the investment of time will be well worth it.
3. Allow God to shape your character. The process of having to wait to start your own thing, to submit and be apprenticed to someone else also powerfully shapes one’s character. We can never get away from the fact that there is no real Kingdom advancement through us apart from having the character of Jesus. That’s why Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” It’s possible to grow a huge church and see more money or people, but that doesn’t mean it has a Kingdom quality to it. That’s Christendom success, not necessarily Kingdom success (though that isn’t to say large churches don’t exist in the Kingdom, it’s just not the measurement of success). We need it to be of God’s Kingdom and that requires Jesus’ character. His character is always formed in us through a posture of humility and submission. This process shapes that in church planters.
4. Create financial stability by developing a skill to be bi-vocational. Two years would give time for church planters to learn an additional skill-set outside of ” pastor” that would allow them to be bi-vocational once they plant their church. It needs to be a job that is flexible, not emotionally taxing, will pay the bills, is mobile (so you can keep doing it when you move, just as Paul could move from place to place and still make tents) and provides an opportunity of overlap between the church plant and the sphere of business. It’s possible for a church planter to have a skill-set that pays the bills but it may not fit the other important criteria. An example: commission-based sales may provide financially, but it’s an emotionally taxing job because every day your performance dictates if you will pay the bills. Church planting is difficult enough without that added dimension. This two-year period allows the development of a skill that would allow a church planter to be bi-vocational in a way that is meaningful. (Part 4 of this series will delve into this specific point, but if you’re interested in some other thoughts on this, check out Dave Fitch’s blog post on this subject by clicking here). Being bi-vocational (even if only for the first few years of the church plant) allows the church to grow at the rate it needs to without the undo financial pressure of having to feed the family. Finding a skill-set that fits the 5 requirements above allows someone to plant a church and have financial and familial stability.
5. Time allocation. From a time allocation standpoint for this two year training, I imagine 50% of a church planter’s week is spent on learning how to practically do discipleship and mission in a post-Christendom culture and 50% of their time is developing a bi-vocational skill-set that is compatible with church planting. I think this is crucial because struggling to pay the bills and watching what it does to your family often forces you into a no-win situation where you have to choose between taking care of your family or creating the kind of church you believe God has called you to. It forces you to make decisions you wouldn’t otherwise make. Perhaps the most poignant example I’ve seen of this is Jason Coker’s post-mortem of his failed church plant. If you haven’t already, read his reflections and notice how finances subtly played into it.
6. Raise support. Church planters still fundraise for support and maybe receive denominational dollars, but that money is going to paying their salary for 3 years. Years 1 & 2 of their support are for immersive training (both for planting a church and developing a bi-vocational skill). Year 3 of their support covers their first year of church planting/bi-vocationalism. This allows a healthy period of adjustment in Year 3 and complete financial stability as they head into their first year without support in Year 4. What we need to understand is planting this kind of church doesn’t require much seed-funding because you don’t need to rent large meeting spaces during prominent places in the week (i.e. Sunday morning is the prime time slot which requires quite a bit of money). Having great equipment isn’t nearly as important because the worship service is no longer the “front door” for people; something like Missional Communities would most often be the front door. That relieves a lot of the financial pressure that comes with rent and equipment purchase.
7. Health Insurance. Structure it so that part of the money that church planters raise to goes towards health insurance where they are allowed to buy into a group plan with excellent coverage. It’s shameful that church planters are having to worry about taking their kids or spouse (or themselves!) to the doctor or hospital because they have terrible health care (or none at all) b/c it’s not affordable.
8. You’ll probably have to move. Here’s reality: There are very few churches in the United States that are doing things like discipleship/ mission/ decentralized/ movemental effectively or well (in the way that the NT would describe as “effective” or “well”). It isn’t the way we’d like it to be, but it’s the way that it is right now. That’s reality. That means that for most planters, to do what I’m proposing, they’d need to uproot their family and move. I wish it didn’t have to be that way. I wish I could change that. I wish there were an easier path. But I just don’t know of another way at this point. I think in 10-20 years that landscape will have changed. But we don’t live in that place yet. We need to create that place. And I think it will require a large group of people doing what I’m talking about to create that reality.
In the past 6 months, this is what the Lord has been laying on my heart and revealing to me…both through my experiences but through everything I’m researching, seeing around me and through the hundreds of church planters I’ve talked to. And in the months to come…I’m fairly certain we will begin shaping the training I’m describing above. We shall see. Upcoming posts: Parts 4 & 5 will deal with the the barriers I think people will have to this kind of training and Part 6 will dive into the idea of the bi-vocational training described in this post.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
What excites you about this proposal? What seems daunting or difficult? What works in it? What doesn’t? What factors do you think we should be considering for re-imagining church planter training that aren’t in this post?
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22 Responses to Re-imagining Church Planter Training | Part 3 | A Practical Proposal
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2011/10/17
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OK, not because this is some sort of glaring omission to this post, but just because I am who I am and do what I do, I’m compelled to suggest that the question of pursuing theological education probably needs to be part of the equation here. Ideally, those in our “leadership pipelines” (to borrow a phrase from Breen’s recent post) could count on the church in which they serve and are learning to do ministry to also provide additionally helpful training in regard to Christian history, biblical studies, theology, etc., not because one isn’t “qualified” to lead or plant a church w/o having engaged in this sort of study, but because these areas of study really do contribute to becoming an increasingly thoughtful, well-rounded, and wise spiritual leader. But, by and large, churches are either unable or incapable of providing this sort of training and thus, our emerging leaders turn to seminaries. Of course this is a whole other conundrum because the dominant structure of seminaries doesn’t lend itself to being accessible (let alone affordable) to leaders under the vision of church planting you’ve offered here, but I don’t think we can, for that reason alone, overlook the matter. We need to begin to provide solutions to the problem theological education faces in its supposed attempt to serve the Church and her leaders along the lines of what you are proposing!
JR, couldn’t agree more on the seminary thoughts. If we’re going to set aside two years for immersive training for the character and competency of Jesus in planting a church, there’s no reason not to go whole hog and make it as comprehensive and integrated as possible (like how I used “whole hog” there?!).
Hey Doug,
I think this is GREAT stuff. As someone who’s attempting to do this (and admittedly struggling), what you are saying rings true on many levels.
I think that you will have an easier time finding churches/pastors that will ‘adopt’ a couple to train in church planting than helping people develop a marketable job skill. As someone who is trying to figure that out right now (I’m planting a church, working in educational consulting, and starting a small business), it’s not as easy as it would seem because of the stage of life in which people start to think of planting churches.
I’m almost 30 with a wife and child. I have an undergraduate degree from a liberal arts school that has left me with no specific skill set (though I can carry on a conversation about impressionist paintings thanks to that Art Survey course!). I then went to seminary, which almost made things worse because it gave me a specific skill set, but not for the type of church I want to start. As I got done with seminary and I realized that my place wasn’t in an attractional model church (or church plant), and I wanted to be bi-vocational, I didn’t have ANY real options for doing so outside of getting an entry level job in corporate America, or start my own business (which as you may have picked up, I’ve done both).
Both options are fraught with difficulties. With a job in corporate America, you lack the flexibility you need to truly invest in a church plant. And there’s a whole load of difficulties learning a new position, making sure you’re working enough hours to keep your job, etc. It’s a great mission field. But ultimately it is far from ideal. Starting a business certainly provides the flexibility, but you’re looking at needing 2-3 years before you may be making any type of money – and it is an ALL CONSUMING venture for those first couple of years. In a couple of years I think the business will be providing for us, but until then you’ve got to find ways to pay the bills – which doesn’t help during those first few years of a church plant.
The only things I would propose are this:
1. We need to take a far more longitudinal approach to planting. Two years to prepare for the ministry side may be enough, but it may not be enough for the business side.
2. Identify church planters while they are still undergraduates. If we can get students while they are still pursuing their degree, they have the chance of choosing a major that will help them develop an actual skill. It also allows them time to do internships/jobs that will develop specific skill sets.
3. For those people further down the road and considering seminary – STOP!!!!! Rather than go and get an M.Div (which I have), consider taking classes strategically and not getting a whole degree and go and get a masters degree that will actually get you a skill.
I really think the seminary piece of this is the big stumbling block. We need people to have that education, but we can’t afford it for this type of model.
Love the thoughts and suggestions on this, Alex. I think one of the things JR and I are looking at (see his comment below) is integrating a seminary experience into this that would actually be accessible (you can do it where you’re living) and affordable. We’ll see how all of that comes along.
As far as the business piece goes that you mentioned in your first comment, I think that should probably be one of the pieces of criteria for evaluating a skill-set/job for bi-vocational pastors…that you can LEARN and BUILD a sustainable business in 2-3 years.
Love the feedback.
I think the exciting thing for me is that we can offer high quality content for REALLY cheap through the online platform that will integrate perfectly with what we’re doing. Right now I’m helping schools build out their online platforms and once the initial overhead is absorbed, the costs of upkeep are somewhat minimal. There certainly are MANY moving parts in a project as big as this, but we could certainly use the online format to supplement an immersion education.
Doug,
I wholeheartedly agree with this approach. In fact, the church I left in Annapolis to come to RVA has been doing something like this for several years. It seems to be one of the most well-rounded approaches I’ve encountered. I actually underwent a skeleton version of this development process when I transitioned from my career to ministry years ago. Since then, I have worked to help shape and form it into (what I think is) a fully orbed development plan - similar to what you have proposed. In fact, we have a couple of guys in our church doing this right now.
Our thing mirrors a medical residency. Like a med student who gets their education and experience before practicing professionally, so the church planter experiences their education and preparation in the local church setting. And like a true residency, their development is done under the tutelage/direction of a mentor coach.
So, once a church planter has been assessed, they enter a 2-3 year ‘residency’ program where the goal is to develop and demonstrate proficiencies in a variety of church planting competencies. The residency is broken down into 3 focuses:
Head: theological education
Heart: character development and spiritual transformation
Hands: practical ministry experience related to church planting
A planter-in-residence is assigned a coach/mentor who oversees their development plan, and, basically, disciples them. Since it’s important to keep the planter in the local church context, we absolutely have to find non-traditional forms of seminary (and there are plenty of great choices out there) to fill the education piece. From a financial perspective these planters live on combinations of monetary sources – support, partial residence stipends, and/or bi-vocational income. All of which can be run through the local church. So, like you proposed, a planter gets the benefit of practicing and learning what they will eventually be doing in their own church plant, while in the context of an existing church.
One of the benefits that I’ve seen from this is that it not only better prepares or equips the planter, but it also reduces the likelihood that they’ll tube out later. It seems that the demonstration of competencies, developed over time, with good coaching/mentoring better equips the planter for what they are likely to face once they plant. Obviously, this idea is a slower burn, one that most planters don’t want to wait for or invest in (let’s face it - a good planter wants to go now!). But, in reality, I think it is a better approach than the traditional ‘drink from a fire hydrant boot camp’ alternative. I love what you are thinking.
Now the question is, how can more planters and churches embrace a model of preparation similar to the idea you have proposed? What is really needed?
By the way, I love the “Head, Heart, Hands” breakdown of skills and competencies. That’s a way of thinking about it holistically.
This is a great starting place, Doug, and I love all the additional thoughts I’m seeing in the comments. I can only agree with everyone!
Another element to this might be to think in terms of staging things more long-term (Alex mentioned some of this), where the actual planting of a church happens perhaps in the middle of the process? Spend a couple years immersed in context, and then planting is like the mid-term exam, but relationship and resourcing would continue for another couple years, perhaps?
This would give more time for some of those more traditional theological education pieces (the “book-learning,” which is important), and would also put that theological learning in the context of lived practice, which will help it be absorbed at a deeper and more comprehensive way, I think.
I do think “selling” this to planters will be a challenge, as Brian pointed out, but if it starts small and builds a reputation for “success,” (i.e. healthy church planters, healthy churches, good fruit) it might start to commend itself.
Definitely agree on this stuff, Ben. A couple of thoughts on this:
1) You’d definitely need a continued system of support and investment once you’re through the “official” training piece of me. For me personally, I think it would have been more helpful to do something like this and THEN do 3DM’s Learning Community, as well as the relational ties with them and something like Ecclesia.
2) I agree on the “selling” piece of it, but totally think it needs to start small anyway. Perhaps one of our biggest issues is that we Americans tend to go HUGE first because we want fame/significance as soon as possible rather than building something of quality that will last and be meaningful. I’d much rather have 25 church planters who felt called and have done this process after 5 years than 200 with a shaky experience b/c we were trying to “sell” them and they never really “got it.” The health/success of those 25 will spread like wildfire and your next 5 years are infinitely easier. Build for the long haul rather than for the short hit. That’s where my thoughts are at right now.
Where do I sign up for this? It’s exactly the kind of training and transition I’m willing to undertake to move from the Sunday-centric, attractional model into a financially viable church planting role!
Kevin, currently all of this is in the beginning stages as a lot of these thoughts are coalescing and hopefully we will start the process of fleshing it out in the not-too-distant future. If you would like me to keep you in the loop, can definitely do that.
Please do keep me in the loop!
I was trained pretty much in this way. 2 year internship with part-time theological and practical classes, part-time work at a coffee roasting business with the opportunity to learn several skillsets (though I already had the skillset to support myself doing web development), one-on-one mentoring, and opportunities to step into ministry skills in a safe environment. Then a 2 year stint helping out with a fairly new church plant before moving to Northern Ireland to plant.
The churches were still largely attractional in practice where teaching was emphasized heavily so I mostly learned to teach and pray for people and some theory about mission stuff and still mostly ended up “learning to fly the plane and build it at the same time” (definitely still learning), but I think the model you suggest works well at building skills and character and will only get more effective as the training churches get better.
I think you’re right on here. As you point out, being bivocational has been a life-saver for us and particularly web stuff is a great area for that as it’s stayed pretty strong even in this economy and work times and locations tend to be flexible. I feel a bit sheepish sharing because I don’t feel like a shining example of success at all, but hopefully my experience contributes something to the discussion. If you’re at all interested in teaching planters how to roast coffee I can connect you with some folks who are mega-excited about that.
I want to learn to roast coffee!
Mark, I am jumping in on this conversation way late but would love to hear more about your coffee roasting.
Doug -
Great stuff here. We talked frequently at LOV about developing something like this - and actually - this is what LOV does with the glut of leaders it has almost by default. Except for the “finding a bi-vocational skill” part. In my experience there are 2 bi-vocational skill sets that seem to work hand-in-hand with pastoring: web design/computers and teaching (seminary, college).
What would be helpful is to have a list of sustainable vocational choices for aspiring church planters. What if teaching and web design aren’t options? Anything else for the bi-vocational church planter?
What about marriage/family counseling?
Kevin -
Do you have experience as a marriage/family counselor? Or do you know someone who is bi-vocational that does that?
It occurs to me that may work, but I’m wondering if there are any real life examples of it happening.
Hey Doug,
Really enjoying your posts and it provides great thought and conversations in my relationships. I went back and re-read this post in particular and Doug Fitch’s blog. I love and see the need for more bi-vocational planters, but a common thread I sense (particularly in Doug’s post) is that we MUST go in the bi-vocational direction. I agree, that we need more bi-vocational planters (I’m not one of them at this point), but the church has a history of swinging the pendulum in extreme measures and in every case that comes to mind (Rome/Christendom, Reformation, etc.), things become sacred that aren’t supposed to be. The bi-vocational movement is a great way, but it’s not the only way. Just wanted to throw that out there for discussion purposes. Not trying to be argumentative (hard to communicate tone in an email or online comment). Just something I was thinking about and I’m very open to other perspectives.
Aaron
I think Fitch would make a STRONG statement that pastors need to be bi-vocational. I wouldn’t go that far. What I’m really doing is looking at the culture as we see Christendom crumbling and saying, “The finances are all drying up. It’s not sustainable. We’ve got to think differently about this thing.” If it is contextually appropriate and can be done with integrity, I have no problem with full time paid pastors. However, I do think we have to understand how our culture has influenced us about this: More than 50% of all Christians in the world are led by pastors who are NOT paid to be pastors. It’s just that we’ve grown up in western Christianity.
Doug, I think your observations are correct.
Maybe being young, educated, married, children, and all the other cares of the world person is not the best candidate for planting a church. Should not many in a church body be a pastor? The reason I ask this is because the growing of the body should produce mature members doing the work of the church, part of that work is being a pastor. Seems like the western church is lacking pastors that pastor. By the way, just what would you say is a pastor’s duties?
Wendell