Title: Church Planting Landmines, Tom Nebel and Gary Rohrmayer, ChurchSmart Resources' Review and Adaptatio
1Church Planting Landmines, Tom Nebel and Gary
Rohrmayer, ChurchSmart Resources. Review and
Adaptationby Bill Wiesman, Bill_at_TnNaz.org
2 - Learning from failure is a key concept in life
and successful church planting. - Church Planting Landmines looks at many of the
issues that can bring failure and gives practical
advice on how to avoid these mistakes.
3Land Mines include
- Ignoring personal health and growth
- Lack of leadership development
- Leadership backlash
- Personal Evangelism entropy
- Corporate Evangelism entropy
- Inadequate Enfolding Strategy
- Fear of money
- Underestimating spiritual warfare
- Misfiring on hiring
- Delaying Missions Engagement
4- Every NewStart leadership team should read this
book before launch. - In addition to describing the landmines, each
chapter contains valuable insights and concrete
guidelines for advance planning to avoid these
common mistakes. - Many of these suggestions should be incorporated
into the DNA of every NewStart prior to launch.
5Landmine 1 Ignoring Personal Health.
- The Abuse of Finances
- The Abuse of Power.
- Pride.
- Illicit Sexual Relationships.
- The Neglect of our Physical Bodies.
- Critical Family Issues.
- Plateauing.
6Strategies to Finish Well
- Intercessory Prayer Teams.
- Disciplines Ongoing Life of Spiritual Training
vs. Trying. I probably couldnt run a marathon
if I simply tried, but I probably could if I
trained. - Renewal Times. Suggest a signed pledge to take
off one day a week, and at least one family
vacation a year. Daily- quiet time, Weekly- day
off, Monthly- retreat day, Annually- special
events and extended vacations. - Mentoring and Accountability.
- Being a Life-long learner.
7Landmine 2 Lack of Leadership Development
- Most church planters pray for God to bring them
leaders, but God wants them to develop leaders.
Every leader is responsible not just to build a
team and manage a task, but to spot, encourage,
and develop other leaders under their care.
8Natural vs. Spiritual Leaders
- Natural Leaders
- Self-confident
- Know People
- Make their own decisions
- Ambitious
- Originate own methods
- Enjoy commanding others
- Motivated by personal considerations
- Independent
- Spiritual Leaders
- Confident in God
- Also know God
- Seek to find Gods will
- Self-effacing
- Find Gods methods
- Delight to obey God
- Motivated by love for God and people
- God-dependent
9Creating a Leadership Culture in a New Church
- Must re-define Spiritual Leadership
- Great Leaders are Teachable Leaders
- Identify Emerging Leaders
- Equip leaders Holistically
- COACH
- Celebrate Achievements
- Create a Multiplying Mindset
10Landmine 3 Leadership Backlash
- Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly
from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a
stranger. Franklin Jones
11Causes of backlash
- There may have been pre-existing leaders on site
prior to the planter. - There are often insecurities on the part of the
planter. - The planter has limited time available.
- Potential leaders feel pressure to serve.
- Assumptions are made that the initial leaders
will be the perpetual leaders.
12A Solution that Works
- Phase 1 The Pastors Advisory Team PAT A group
of people that help the church planter make
decisions prior to the launch date. - Phase 2 The Transitional Advisory Group TAG
Team After the PAT is dissolved at launch , a
new leadership team takes the church on to the
next level for a specific period of time, perhaps
a year. - Ph 3 The Short-term Leadership Team SLT
- Phase 4 Formal Board
13Further Recommendations on Phased Progressions
- Use as many phases as you need and any names you
want. - In the beginning, dont give away roles, give
away jobs. Roles connote titles, position, and
policy making, but jobs connote service.
14Landmine 4 Personal Evangelism Entropy
- Entropy is the natural and irreversible tendency
toward disorder in any system without an external
source of energy. As the church gets older and
older it becomes harder to keep evangelism on the
front burner because of all the competing issues
that keep pushing it back.
15Solutions
- Remember that you are a missionary to your
community. - Upgrade your networking skills.
- Be available to those experiencing life
transitions. - Share your wins, losses and blunders continually
with the church. (Not just the victories.)
16Landmine 5 Corporate Evangelism Entropy.
- Reasons
- Postpartum syndrome. After the intensity of
birth, there is always some kind of let-down. - The church may have had an ineffective
grand-opening or launch. (Best times, early fall
or pre-Easter.) - The tyranny of the urgent. Urgent items are
those that require immediate attention, whether
important or not. Important items contribute to
your mission, values, your high priority goals.
Important matters that are not urgent require
more initiative, more proactivity.
17Equipping A Strategy for Overcoming Corporate
Entropy
- Fueling the prayer life of your people.
- Training your people to be storytellers Theirs,
Churches, Jesus - Training your people to be inviters and
includers.
18Landmine 6 Inadequate Enfolding Strategy
- Launching a new church is so event oriented, with
the planning and preparation of the public
worship services, that something is likely to
suffer, such as poor follow-up of newcomers. A
clear strategy is needed before the church opens
its doors and the strategy needs to be revisited
and reworked again and again.
19Six Things to improve the enfolding strategy
- First impressions.
- Response filtering. Use a response card. Use the
card for the communication of the whole church.
Hand out pens. Have the card mentioned at least
three times (welcome, offering, prayer time).
Train your people continually to use the card. - Second Touch.
20Second Touch Thermometer
- 90-100 A gift delivered to their home by a
volunteer before they get home after the service. - 80-90 A gift delivered to their home by a
volunteer within 24 hours of their visit. - 70-80 A phone call from a volunteer within 48
hours of their visit. - 60-70 A gift delivered to their home by a
volunteer within 48 hours of their visit. - 50-60 A phone call from the pastor within 24
hours.
21Second Touch Thermometer (cont)
- 40-50 A gift delivered to their home by the
pastor or staff within 48 hours of their visit. - 30-40 A personalized letter from the pastor or
staff addressing a specific question or concern,
with appropriate materials enclosed. Example
What is child dedication? - 20-30 A personalized letter from the pastor or
staff with a stamped First Impression Card
enclosed. - 10-20 A personalized letter from the pastor or
staff. - 0-10 A form letter from the pastor or staff.
- 0 No Response.
22Six Things to improve the enfolding strategy
(cont)
- Next Steps. Refers to understanding,
communicating, and offering programming for the
next step in someones spiritual journey. Offer
next steps for seekers, visiting believers,
regular attendees, and committed members. - Modular Training. This is a systematic approach
to help new converts and believers work through
spiritual formation issues, develop the life
ministry skills, and make the critical
commitments they need to move toward spiritual
maturity and multiplication. Rick warrens
baseball diamond is an example. - Empowering converts. Maturity is an issue of
obedience and responsibility, not an issue of
longevity. Church planters need to have a vision
and a process of turning the church over to their
converts.
23Landmine 7 Fear of Money
- The roots of fear or neglect of money relates to
the church planters personal rejection issues,
coupled with a skeptical society rampant with
stories of financial abuse.
24Solutions
- Agree on some foundational issues God blesses
faithful stewards its not about what the church
needs, its about what the Lord wants its okay
to teach about tithing. - Create a Stewardship Culture. Suggestion to use
Gods Guarantee Card, ala John Maxwell. (Gives
back everything given after 90 days if the Lord
doesnt bless.) - Recommend the traditional offering rather than an
offering box. If you use an offering box must
still model and teach stewardship.
25Solutions (cont)
- Financial seminars, small groups and
discipleship. - Bulletin and newsletter reminders.
- Capital campaigns.
- Finally, be seeker friendly. Its very possible
to teach and model good stewardship without being
labeled as money-hungry.
26Landmine 8 Underestimating Spiritual Warfare
- You may know that prayer is not the preparation
for the battle, prayer is the battle. If you
dont believe it you will step on landmine number
8. Those involved in church planting need to
approach it with a biblical worldview, having a
healthy respect for the unseen world. Spiritual
warfare as it is levied against church planters
and their churches can be placed into one of
three categories discouragement, distractions,
or disqualifications.
27Ideas for Creating a God-dependent Church
- Create a culture of dependence. Regularly
communicate and set the tone that this is a
church that needs God. - Intercession Teams.
- Specialized Prayer Teams. One idea, a prayer
meeting at 6am that is only to pray for growing
church attendance, conversions, and hurting
people. - Fasting
28Ideas for Creating a God-dependent Church (cont)
- Specialized Prayer Meetings.
- Prayers for Healing.
- The Individual Prayer Life of the Leader. There
seems to be at least a correlational linkage
between the spiritual vitality of a leader and
the blessing of God on the movement.
29Landmine 9 Misfiring on Hiring
- Getting the right people in your organization
will determine the level of success that you will
see.
30The Youth Pastor Mistake and the
Shepherd-Equipper Tension.
- There is nothing that will institutionalize your
church more than hiring a full time youth pastor.
Hiring a full time youth pastor as your first
staff person reinforces the idea that only
professionals can do ministry rather than the
idea of staff being the equippers of ministry. - An equipping leader can recruit, train, and coach
other leaders to do the ministry of the church.
31Problem of Settling for What You Can Afford
- There are no blue light specials when it comes to
finding exceptional people. - Churches tend to look for stability, structure,
subordinates, saving money, someone to shape. - Impact players look for excitement,
flexibility, partnerships, compensation, to shape
others.
32Recommendations
- First hire should be a part-time specialist
focusing on the areas worship, childrens
ministry, or administration. These ministries
directly affect the Sunday morning attendance. - If you are going to hire a full-time person, then
hire a generalist, a leader who can oversee and
equip leaders in several areas of the ministry. - Develop a Process for Hiring. What do they look
like? Where do You Find Them? What do you do When
They are in Front of You? How do You Make the
Decision?
33Landmine 10 Delaying Mission Engagement
- Most new churches and planters declare that their
mission includes participating in the greater
mission of building Gods Kingdom around the
world and often that they want to be a
reproducing church planting other churches.
But, somewhere along the way diversions occur or
a shift of the heart takes place.
34Too Weak, Too Strong, and the Curse of the Y
Word
- Some churches are not as strong as originally
anticipated, finances are tight, and the workload
is heavy. These churches see themselves as too
weak to give away people or money or prayer
beyond their own needs. - Just the opposite can also occur. The church has
grown to a certain level of success and health.
For some mysterious reason the Y word- yet-
appears. Were not ready yet to give or
sacrifice or take risks. The church wants to
buy land, or add a staff person, or any number of
other causes and this leads them to think that
they are not ready yet.
35Reasons to be a Missional Church
- Our theology requires it.
- God blesses generosity.
- Obligation and integrity. (to the ones who made
your journey possible, the denomination or
sending body.) - The need
36Ways to Maintain Your Missional Commitment
- Plant a daughter church. (Birth before we
build?) - Be generous. Dont wait to be obedient to the
Lord. Give away at least 10. - Participate in the life of the denomination or
sending agency. - International Missions Involvement.
37Case Study
- The Pointe Church of the Nazarene White House,
Tennessee
38 - Lead Pastor and church planter, Todd Bush has
served for more than fifteen years in
contemporary church ministry, beginning ministry
working extensively with youth and young adults,
then serving nearly thirteen years as Lead/Senior
Pastor. Todd has been married for nearly
fourteen years to Yolanda and they have three
wonderful sons Elijah who is eleven years old,
Levi who is seven years old, and Joel who is
three years old.
39- Worship Creative Arts Pastor, Bill Petty
was born and raised in Nashville. Bill and Cinda
have two precious children, Eve and William.
Bill's passion is to serve God and influence
others through ministry founded in music and
arts. In 2007, God introduced Bill to Pastor Todd
Bush, revealing a common vision for a new
ministry in White House, TN. Bills
accomplishments include Male Vocalist of the Year
for the 2008 CIA Music Awards.
40- Senior Adult Pastor, Jack Oden is a native of
Nashville, TN. Jack and Faye have been married
for 39 years and have two children and two
grandchildren. Jack has been an ordained
minister since 1985 and in full-time ministry for
25 years. Senior Adult Night takes
place on Wednesday nights _at_ 630 pm.
41White House, Tennessee
- 2000 Population 32,136
- 2000 Unclaimed estimate 16,768
- 2008 Estimated Population 38,427
- Above average Growth expected
- 2013 Population Projection 42,410
- 41.4 of households have children compared to
National average of 33.4
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43White House, Tennessee
44The Pointe Church of the Nazarene
- Began in Community Center 09/2007
- Averaging 125 to 150 in Worship
- Multiple Community Outreach Events
- First Steps and Next Steps
- Connect Groups
- Contemporary Worship
45 46Land Mines include
- Ignoring personal health and growth
- Lack of leadership development
- Leadership backlash
- Personal Evangelism entropy
- Corporate Evangelism entropy
- Inadequate Enfolding Strategy
- Fear of money
- Underestimating spiritual warfare
- Misfiring on hiring
- Delaying Missions Engagement