So how do we encourage, appreciate and value church planters?  Through our support systems.

Our primary strategy is putting at least ten support systems into place.

 The first system is the Spiritual Vitality system.  The Psalmist wrote, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its’ builders labor in vain.”—Psalm 127:1  We can extrapolate that to “Unless God builds the church, we’re wasting everyone’s time.”  Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.”—John 15:5 

We’re developing a support structure to ensure that our movement and the church planters are staying close to God and getting in on what He is doing. 

Second is the Funding system.  Jesus warned, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.  Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?”—Luke 14:28

Ministry involves raising men, momentum and money.  I’m excited about the funding pieces that are in place in the GHC Network. 

Our funding system utilizes these principles:

• We do investments, not grants.  We’ll put money into a project, but we expect the money to come back to the network.  It isn’t a loan--it’s an investment because we’re building a partnership--a movement.
  
• We invest based on matching funds.  We’ll match what a planter raises (to a level agreed upon with the planter).  The matching funds principle reinforces that if someone cannot raise money, they probably cannot plant a church.  Also, the matching funds principle helps greatly in raising money.
  
• We do “incentive-laden” contracts.  Money is dispersed to the planter as certain agreed-upon milestones are met.  
  

Fourth is an Assessing system.  In Ephesians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul talks about the body of Christ being built up—effective ministry.  He cites gifting and “speaking the truth in love” and “each part doing its work.”  We need to make sure that a candidate is suited for the entrepreneurial leadership task of planting before we send them out.

For the last ten years I’ve been leading one of the best (okay, I believe it is the best) church planting assessment structures in America—the TeAMerica Assessment Center.  Recently I stepped down so that GHC can take assessing to a new level.  We’re now offering the GHC Network Church Planting Discovery Center--a four day event to help potential planters see if this is the right ministry fit for them.  Involvement in the network for a planter starts with the Discovery Center.

Upcoming Discovery Center Dates:

• March 10-13--Elk Grove, CA
  
• June 17-20--Elk Grove, CA                  
  
• July 29-August 1--Charlotte, NC  
  
• September 29-October 2--Green Lake, WI

The fifth structure is the Vision Alignment system.  Solomon said, “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge or to be hasty and miss the way.”—Proverbs 19:2 

I have seen too many church planters who were godly, gifted and even well-funded never get their projects off the ground.  Why did they fail?  They struggled because they were often sent out to the wrong place, or at the wrong time, or with the wrong team (usually with no team).  Or they were sent out with strategies and tactics that might have been exciting and new, but stood no chance of succeeding.

We’ve put together an advisory team of wise strategists who will interact with planters on their plans and proposals.  We want to be fostering faith, yet eliminating as much needless risk as possible.

Sixth, we have a Training system.  Regretfully, most of the church planting training available today is underwhelming.  The majority of planters survive by trial and error.   At GHC we’ve put together our own training pieces, led by Karl Roth.  We offer some seminar training pieces and we send planters to conferences, but our primary training method is to send our trainers on site to work with the planter and the church plant team.

The seventh structure is a Coaching system.  “For waging war you need guidance and for victory many advisers.”—Proverbs 24:6  We want to provide on-going, easily-accessible advise, counsel and encouragement for the church planters we deploy.  So, we’ve assembled a team of leaders experienced in church planting to walk with every church planter.   The church planter gets to pick a coach from a number of highly successful planters and coaches.

If things go well, the planter is often pushed aside while the glory is scooped up by the agency, which claims, “This was really all our idea!”

These feelings of being neglected and discarded can actually seem deeper for the church planter’s spouse—and family.

Church planters are on the front lines, the cutting edge of ministry. Let’s care for them and treat them with honor (1 Timothy 5:17).

Our primary caring structure consists of cluster events where we bring planters together for prayer, training and connecting.  The Network hosts church planter clusters every month in Northern California.  We also have clusters meeting on a regular basis in North Carolina, Florida and Wisconsin.

Upcoming Northern California Cluster Dates:

• March Cluster:  Thursday, March 13, Sacramento   
  2pm followed by the Sacramento Kings/Portland Trailblazers game
  
• April Cluster:  Thursday, April 17, Bay Area   
  2pm followed by the Oakland A’s/Seattle Mariners game
• May Cluster:  Thursday, May 15, dinner (following staff meeting)
  
• June Cluster:  Tuesday, June 17, San Francisco 
  2pm followed by the San Francisco Giants/Detroit Tigers game
  
• July Cluster:  Thursday, July 10, Sacramento lunch

Number nine is the Creativity system.

It’s a new day for ministry isn’t it?  New paradigms are surfacing, like the emerging church, video venues, multi-site, post-modern, modern, classic, traditional and next-gen ministries. We hear about the organic church, the simple church, the house church, the coffee house church, and at the same time we see the rise of the mega-church.

We’re not here to force our favorite model on everyone, we just want to reach out and grow healthy churches. Jesus talked about “new wine.” He was saying that innovation is necessary. If we insist on staying old and crusty and stuck in our ruts: “the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.”—Matthew 9:17

So, we’re putting together a team to explore some of these “new wineskins.” We’re looking for Biblically viable and practically effective ways to start new congregations.

And tenth, we also need a Partnering system.

Some churches are ready to parent. Some aren’t convinced they are even ready to baby-sit for half an hour. But everyone can do something in God’s church planting movement. We’ve put together a system that offers a wide range of options for involvement—from giving a hundred people and a hundred grand to paying for that babysitter so the church planting couple can have some time to themselves.

This partnering piece also involves inviting leaders and team members to get involved in establishing and running these systems. I’m looking for help in the spiritual, funding, recruiting, assessing, risk-management, training, coaching, caring, creativity, and partnering systems.

If you’d like to partner up, feel free to contact me. Together we can take these systems to a new level and see a true movement emerge.  jdpearring@aol.com