The Fall Harvest
Fall is just around the corner. This means many farmers will be working overtime to harvest their crops and prepare for winter. They’ve worked hard all year long tilling soil, planting seeds, watering and fertilizing. Now it’s time to reap the fruit of their labors.
This fall many church planters we serve will be doing the same thing. All year long they’ve worked towards a harvest. They’ve recruited and trained a launch team, conducted outreach events, executed their marketing strategy, and saturated every aspect of their ministry in prayer. Along the way they’ve seen people come to faith; the first fruits of their labor. And now this fall, we’re looking forward to the harvest many new churches will reap.
Jesus told his disciples, “Do you not say, ‘Four more months and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” (John 4:35). Passion for Planting desires to equip church planters with the tools and resources they need to bring in the harvest. We hope you find the resources in this newsletter helpful to this end and the many more we make available at our website. Happy harvesting!
–Dale Spaulding, Director
September 2017 – Contents
- Church Plant Budget
- Launch Team Development Ideas
- National Discipleship Forum
- Encounter Church
Church Plant Budget
Let’s face it, most church planters don’t have a degree in finance. Yet most will be responsible with determining how the church handles its finances. This can be a scary undertaking for many church planters. That’s why we’ve developed a Church Plant Budget Worksheet that helps church planters create a multi-year budget for their new church.
God’s called us to be good stewards of the resources he’s given us, and creating a comprehensive church plant budget is one way planters can honor God with the finances of the new church. A well-thought-out budget won’t guarantee that your new church reaches lost people with the gospel, but it can help as it frees you to focus on people and not financial issues.
Launch Team Development Ideas
Every church starts with people. It doesn’t start with a building or a slick marketing campaign. It starts with a team of people who are willing to give/serve for the vision of the new church. Building this team is hard work and it’s essential.
If you find yourself looking for ideas on how to build a dynamic launch team that’s united and equipped to live out the vision of your new church, read Patrick Bradley’s post 2 Ingenious Church Plant Launch Team Ideas. The ideas are practical, easy to implement, impactful, and yet oftentimes overlooked.
National Disciple Making Forum
We don’t plant churches to draw a crowd and put on a good show. We plant churches to make disciples of Jesus, who in turn make more disciples. This doesn’t happen by mistake. It requires intentionality, and that’s why we encourage church planters to develop a discipleship strategy for their church even before they launch public gatherings.
If your church needs help developing a discipleship strategy consider using our discipleship strategy template to articulate how your church plans to create fully devoted followers of Jesus.
Looking for more insight on how you and your church can more effectively reproduce disciples? Attend the National Disciple Making Forum on November 9th-10th in Nashville, TN. Learn from disciple-making leaders like Robert Coleman, Jim Putnam, Thom Rainer, Trillia Newbell, and others to learn more about making disciples in every area of life and ministry. See Discipleship.org for more.
Encounter Church Launches
Two years ago, Joel Pazmino enrolled in the Passion for Planting Church Planting Residency program to prepare himself to plant a multi-ethnic, reproducing church in Washington, D.C. He felt God calling him and his wife to plant in the heart of the city, which led them to move to Colombia Heights, a diverse neighborhood two miles from the White House.
Today people of Colombia Heights are benefiting from the fruit of his labor through the ministry of Encounter Church.
It’s wonderful to see how God’s used Joel’s diligent preparation, prayer, and leadership to turn his vision for Encounter Church into reality. On September 10th, they launched weekly worship gatherings and 191 responded to their invitation to encounter God. We look forward to seeing how God continues to use Encounter Church to transform lives in the years to come.