Healthy Churches Do This
Is your church designed to grow and reproduce? It can be, and we think it should be because that’s what healthy organisms do. This is easier said than done, though, right?
What can you focus on doing to help your church grow and reproduce? I think Ephesians 4 gives us a key answer by saying, “It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up,” (Ephesians 4:11-12). Right here God’s word offers to us one of the main responsibilities of church leaders. It’s equipping and empowering believers to use their gifts and passions to build up the church.
If you’re planting a church, now is the time to cultivate a culture of empowerment within your church. Don’t wait until later, because what you do in the very first days of the church will influence the culture of the church for years to come. If individuals on your launch team observe that you, or a select group of leaders, fulfill every ministry task within the church, they will assume that they’re not allowed or not needed. However, if you invite everyone to contribute to the church’s ministry from day one, whether through asking them to set up chairs for a launch team meeting, support hurting people, hosting small group gatherings, or building your website, empowering its people will help your church mature just as described in Ephesians 4.
Unfortunately, some church planters struggle to empower others because they don’t trust that others will accomplish tasks as well as they can. That’s a legitimate concern. You don’t want to abdicate authority. You also don’t want to ask someone to do something they aren’t equipped to do. But if someone can do something 80% as well as you can, let them do it. Equip and empower them, so you can focus on what only you can do, like casting vision for the church plant and helping other people identify their gifts and organizing them into ministry teams.
The power of a healthy ministry team cannot be overstated. The synergy created within a team empowers its members to produce greater outcomes than they could on their own. In other words, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Through this month’s newsletter, we want to inspire and equip you to help every member of your church or launch team find a place to serve. You’ll find ideas, resources, and encouragement to help you mobilize ordinary believers into life-changing ministry. Enjoy!
-Patrick Bradley, Director of Operations
April 2025 – Content
- Your Primary Role
- Leadership Matrix
- Ministry Teams Strategy
- Church Planter Boot Camp
Your Primary Role
What are your main responsibilities as a church planter? Your primary responsibility is to lead and equip. You need to constantly and consistently cast vision, so people can see where God is leading the church. But you also need to equip them with the knowledge and training they need to support the vision. Some who connect have leadership gifts, some have financial gifts, some have administrative gifts, etc. It’s your job to help them activate those gifts and use them to contribute to the church’s mission.
To encourage you in your equipping duties, watch this short video, You Are An Equipper, by Tim Cole, Director of Waypoint Church Partners. Then watch Be Careful Handing Out Titles, a short video in which Nick and Sogol Pulley, who planted Elevate Church, share about the danger of giving people titles too early.
Leadership Matrix
While “organized” may not be the first word that comes to mind when you think about a church planter, your effectiveness as a leader has a lot to do with your ability to build and organize ministry teams. Knowing that church planters could use some assistance structuring those teams, we’ve created a Leadership Matrix Template.
Utilizing this template will help you organize ministry teams and stay up to date with where people are serving. It also helps team members see where they fit into the larger organization and where other service opportunities exist. Download your free Leadership Matrix Template today!
Ministry Teams Strategy
When assessing a leader’s readiness to plant, one trait we look for is their ability to build teams that accomplish a mission. This is an invaluable skill for church planters to develop and utilize while planting. If you don’t, you’ll usually end up doing all the tasks of ministry yourself, instead of leading others to use their gifts to serve the church. That’s not a recipe for church planting success.
That’s why we train church planters to build teams and release ministry to them. What types of ministry teams does a new church need to have, and what will those teams focus on accomplishing? Get clarity on those questions with the help of our Ministry Teams Responsibilities Template. Then download our free Ministry Teams Strategy Template, which will help you develop and organize those teams. It will help you articulate the importance of ministry teams and design their basic structure.
Church Planting Boot Camp
There’s still time to register for our upcoming Church Planter Boot Camp. Part of our training will focus on developing leaders for ministry teams. You will gain clarity for the church God is calling you to plant and develop a strategy to help you turn that vision into reality.
Our new-and-improved boot camp combines online self-paced study and in-person instruction. The next boot camp is just around the corner, happening May 15th-17th in the Washington, D.C. area. However, you don’t have to wait until then to get started with our training. You can start your first online lesson today if you sign up now! Also, bring your spouse or teammates with you using our group discount.