Source: Launching a Preview Service

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By: Portable Church Industries

Source: Campus Planning Dashboard

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by NewChurches.com: In Episode 486 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Todd discuss how to introduce church membership as part of a church plant.

“I am calling in with a question regarding introducing church membership as part of launching a church. I’m in a team which is planting in the UK. We’ve been running an outreach mission center for the past 16 years, but in the next few months we plan to launch our church. One of the things that is worrying us is, up to know, there has been no distinction between the people who come to the groups and the outreach center and we are looking toward church plant with a membership as we would have in our sending church.”

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

Why a clear vision is important
How to equip launch team members for the minstry

 Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“My first recommendation would be to not lose the mission and the vision of your outreach mission center.” – @danielsangi
“When you start the church and there are individuals who are part of other churches who will be joining this, everyone will come with their own existing values.” – @danielsangi
“As you are recruiting a launch team, make sure that your vision, mission, and values are so clear that people know what the church will look like.” – @danielsangi
“Church membership has gotten hijacked in the last several decades. Make sure that they understand that God didn’t give us the local church to become a country club.” – @toddadkins
“God placed us in churches to serve each other and our community, and care of others, and pray for each other, and learn to teach, give, and in some places die for the gospel.” – @toddadkins
“Help people understand from a biblical context what it means to be a local church and the responsibilities that come with it.” – @toddadkins
“Your church is only as healthy as its average attendee or member.” – @toddadkins

Recommended Resources:

Read No Silver Bullets by Daniel Im
Learn more about Developing a Core Team

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

This Episode’s Sponsor:

For more than 25 years, Portable Church® has helped thousands of churches launch strong and thrive in a mobile setting. They design custom solutions that fit each budget, vision, and venue. Everything you need to launch a mobile church — an inviting worship space, kids ministry areas, welcome spaces, storage cases, etc — all in a system refined to make it fast, easy & fun for the weekly volunteer teams.

The post Episode 486: Introducing Church Membership appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 486: Introducing Church Membership

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by Patrick Bradley: Your Launch Sunday attendance will be inflated by grand opening well-wishers. That can be good and bad at the same time. Here are some ideas to maximize the good and minimize the bad.

Many churches experience a spike in attendance at their inaugural public worship gathering. Which can be exciting! But then the following Sunday, attendance goes down. Way down. It’s pretty typical to see attendance drop by a quarter to a third the very next week.

Some real-world math here: if there were 150 at Launch, it shouldn’t shock you that there’s only 100 the next week. Or if you have 350 on the first Sunday to have 235 the next.

What in the world is going on?

There are several factors that lead to an attendance spike at a church’s grand opening:

Well-wishers come to celebrate
A marketing push brings higher than usual numbers of new families from your community
All of your regulars come on a single, historic Sunday

The post 3 Ways to Help Your Grand Opening Well-Wishers Help You appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: 3 Ways to Help Your Grand Opening Well-Wishers Help You

The post 3 Ways to Help Your Grand Opening Well-Wishers Help You appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by NewChurches.com: The terminology, ‘core group’ and ‘launch team’ fundamentally mean something different.

In Episode 303 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Ed discuss the fundamental differences between core groups and launch teams.

Should I start with a core group or a launch team?

In this episode, you’ll discover:

Some of the differences between core groups and launch teams.
How to know which one is right for your church.

Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“A core team are those who are going to help you start and who are going to stay.”–@edstetzer
“The terminology, ‘core group’ and ‘launch team’ fundamentally mean something different.”–@danielsangi

Additional Resources:

Take a look at Ed and Daniel’s book, Planting Missional Churches
Learn about Replanting & Revitalizing
Listen to Episode 279: Training a Launch Team

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

The post Episode 303: Core Groups vs Launch Teams appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 303: Core Groups vs Launch Teams

The post Episode 303: Core Groups vs Launch Teams appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Patrick Bradley: Have a specific plan to celebrate temporary launch team members as you send them back to your supporting church. There’s a lot that is riding on it.

If you’re recruiting temporary launch team members from a supporting church, start with the end in mind. And that end is not getting people to come and serve your church.

There is a direct correlation between how well you celebrate them and:

how they feel about having served
the kind of leadership and initiative they take after they return to their sending church
the chances that they’d volunteer for another plant in the future
how likely the sending church will be to help another planter in the future
the health of your ongoing relationship with the sending church
to what degree your indigenous workers will step up to fill the gaps that are left
…and probably some other things, too

Whatever the agreed upon time frame, you need to publicly celebrate their contribution. Probably even if they decide not to stick it out for the whole term. They joined you on mission and they are heroes of the Church.

The great news is that it’s not difficult or necessarily expensive.

Celebrate Temporary Launch Team Members

Bless them as you release them back to the sending church. And if some stay on and make your church plant home, bless them publicly, too.

Here are some ideas to celebrate temporary launch team members:

acknowledge them from the platform during a worship gathering
call them forward and pray a blessing over them during a worship gathering
record a video of one of the above and send it to the supporting church or post it online
throw a dessert or party (a surprise party?); just don’t make it a potluck
give them each a gift card and thank you note
give them each a memento or trophy
contact their sending pastor and brag on them
post a picture of the whole group on social media

Pick several of these ways to celebrate temporary launch team members. Everyone wins when you do.

The post How to Celebrate Temporary Launch Team Members appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: How to Celebrate Temporary Launch Team Members

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Source: 4 Ways to Find Launch Members

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Launch Team Development 

One common challenge every church planter faces is developing a launch team. Whether a planter starts with a group of people from a sending church or starts from scratch, developing a team of people who will carry out the ministry and mission of the church is never easy.  That’s why during our 10-month church planting residency program we help our residents create a launch team development strategy, which articulates how they plan to cultivate a team of people who will be the initial hands and feet of the church.

Tim Wolf, one of our residents, created his launch team strategy for United Church, which is set to launch in Ownings Mills, MD this fall. In his plan, he described hosting what he called, “re-imagine church nights.” Tim didn’t like the idea of developing United’s launch team through “informational meetings” or “launch team meetings,” but wanted to grow the team through creating opportunities where people in his community could re-image church.

The inspiration for these gatherings arose from interviews Tim conducted with members of Owings Mills. When he asked people in his community to share their perception of church he found that most people viewed churches as “unwelcoming, judgmental, impractical, and irrelevant.” Knowing that’s how many in his community viewed church, he decided it was time to help them “re-imagine” church and help them see how the church as a force for good.

For five months now United has been hosting monthly re-image church nights and over this time they’ve seen their launch team grow from seven to seventy. Last Sunday I had the opportunity to attend a “re-imagine” church night for United Church and I was blown away by the whole experience.

I pulled into town a few minutes before the gathering was slated to begin. When I turned off the town’s main street and approached the site of the gathering, I was greeted with upbeat music, the sight of adults and children laughing while playing games in a closed off section of the parking lot, and several smiling faces pointing me to where I should park. Once I got out of my car multiple launch team members greeted me, thanked me for coming, and pointed me to where the night’s festivities would take place.

After throwing a frisbee around with some of the kids, I headed into the meeting space, which was the town’s old post office. The meeting started right as I was finding a place to sit and began with a fun game involving a Christmas carol sing along, which seemed to lighten everyone’s mood, filled the room with unseasonable Christmas cheer, and also narrowed down the prospects for the United Church worship team.

After the game, the church celebrated two baptisms and then listened intently about the church’s upcoming service project at a local safe house serving local victims of human trafficking. Tim followed this with prayer for the victims of human trafficking and encouraged the team not to ignore the problem, but to come alongside the church as they serve this local safe house.

With the idea of serving the vulnerable fresh on the minds of his team and those who were still exploring the idea of joining the team, Tim cast the vision for United to be church known for its servant-hearted attitude. He illustrated how Jesus equated greatness with serving (Mark 10:43), and then invited everyone to consider the servant role they could play on one of the church’s ministry teams. Not only did Tim describe these “greatness” opportunities, he passed out handouts that described in writing the church ministry teams, the roles people could play on each team, and included space for people to sign up to serve in a specific area.

Once everyone received these handouts, Tim encouraged everyone to spend a few moments in silence to think and pray about next steps they should take with United, whether that be joining the launch team, committing to serve on a ministry team, or coming back to more church events in the future. After a few minutes of silence another leader wrapped up the meeting giving instruction about what people could do with their completed handouts and inviting everyone to stay for a free dinner.

I’ll admit I left without eating anything, so I can’t comment on the quality of the dinner, although I can say the baked Ziti looked delicious.

Experiencing this “re-imagine church night” made me to think about some lessons church planters can learn from United’s launch team development strategy. Here are a few:

1. Meet in a public space that’s easy to find and large enough to host a group of at least 40 adults. Many church plant launch teams stall out at about 25 adults because that’s the size of a small group or two meeting in the planter’s house. However, research tells us that church plants that start with at least 40 adults have a significantly higher survival rate over those that start with less than 40. This is why we encourage church planters to find a space for launch team gatherings that can accommodate large groups of adults and have a space for kid’s activities. Also, having launch team gatherings in a public place is much less threatening than gathering in a stranger’s home.
2. Create a fun, welcoming environment that’s attractive to non-Christians. United did this starting in their parking lot. They saturated it with smiling faces, upbeat music, and fun games. This inviting environment carried on throughout the night with the Christmas carol game, time and activities designated for social interaction, and free dinner.
3. Partner with a local community organization. New churches want to be the hands and feet of Jesus and should serve their community before they invite it to a worship service. Whether this involves coordinating a food drive for a local food bank, serving at fundraisers for the local homeless shelter, or volunteering at area after-school programs, new churches don’t need to create their own service opportunities from scratch, but can partner with and support the good that’s already being done in their community.
4. Don’t wait to call people to take next steps. Some church planters think that ministry will begin after they launch weekly public gatherings. However, ministry begins today. Through launch team gatherings the planter has the opportunity to mold the DNA of the church. In the pre-launch phase church culture is wet cement. The patterns and practices they begin with will shape the rhythms and routines of the church for years to come. Don’t wait to ask people to take next steps in their faith, whether that be joining a ministry team, surrendering their lives to Christ, or serving at an outreach event.

Planting a church is hard work, but thankfully many brave leaders have gone before us and we can learn from their experience. Thanks Tim and United for taking back more ground from the enemy in Owings Mills and allowing us to learn from your example. Keep up the good work!

To learn more about United Church and their “re-imagine church nights” visit their website www.unitedchurchmd.org.

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by Daniel Im and Todd Adkins:

How do you recruit a solid launch team?

This week you will be getting a preview of our Developing a Core Team Course. This is day one of five where the focus will be on building a solid core team as you prepare to plant a church or campus. In today’s episode, Pastor Ronnie Parrott from Christ Community Church in Huntersville, NC talks about recruiting a launch team and specifically answers the following:

How should we look at recruiting a launch team? What does training look like?

In this episode, you’ll discover:

How to cast a vision for your church plant or campus.
Practical ways to recruit people that align with your vision.

Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“Look for disciples to build, not attendees.”–@ronniep
“People give their time, talent, and treasure to vision.”–@ToddAdkins
“A challenge for the church in the coming days is that younger generations do not give to institutions–they give to vision.”–@ToddAdkins
“If you get the wrong team, you’ll get the wrong culture because culture is really shared behavior.”–@ToddAdkins
“You need to build and cast the vision to your staff, leadership, key supporters, and church before you can make the ask.”–@danielsangi

Additional Resources:

Learn more about the Developing a Core Team Course.
Read this post about Building Your Launch Team.
Discover The “Miracle” of Recruiting a High-Level Team.

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

The post Episode 181: Recruiting a Launch Team appeared first on New Churches.

Source: Episode 181: Recruiting a Launch Team

The post Episode 181: Recruiting a Launch Team appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Once you get to the launch of your regular worship gatherings, your church plant website will have gone through several stages. Plan ahead for these 3 church plant website stages so you can transition intentionally instead of accidentally.

Your major church plant website stages will take their cues from your changing audience. Whenever you’re writing website content, you should always ask and remind yourself, “Who’s my audience?” And you’ll have to rewrite your content at least twice.

Stage 1: Your Supporters

Very early in your church planting process, you’re going to need a web page to direct your supporters to. You probably only need a single page, so keep it simple. But a website will be really handy for accepting online donations as you raise funds.

You may not have even named your church yet, so here are some options at this stage:

1. Get a dedicated page on a supporting church or planting organization’s site
2. Use one of those simple website builders that assigns you a subdomain (it’ll look like mychurchplant.[nameofservice].com)
3. Buy a temporary domain name to use for a year (like thecheboyganproject.com) and host your own page

Nobody is going to be stumbling onto your site through internet searches at this stage, so you don’t have to worry too much about SEO. You’ll send your supporters a direct, clickable link through email or text.

Stage 2: Your Team

As you network in the community and begin gathering a team, you’re going to want a site to establish your credibility. Now you need to de-emphasize the ‘money talk’ and emphasize vision, community involvement, and recruitment. Write new content addressed not to the community at large, but to people that you’re meeting personally.

You can transition a temporary domain (#3 above) and just bury the supporter page under a menu. But the first 2 options above begin to crash & burn at this stage. They can be great early on, but they’re not good long-term solutions.

You can launch your own simple website at this point and leave the fundraising page going on its own. But who wants to manage 2 websites?

Before too long, you’ll name the church and buy a permanent domain name. If you’ve gone with hosting your own site, you just swap out the domain name; you don’t have to lose your work.

Stage 3: Your Community

Several months before your grand opening of regular worship gatherings, you’ll need to transition the website to its permanent audience: your community. My friend Russ over at Catalyst Creative recommends keeping your website laser-focused on your external audience and launching a church app for your internal audience.

There is plenty more to be said about designing your permanent website (which should never really be permanent BTW), but that’s for another post.

For now as you’re getting started, plan ahead for these church plant website stages so that you’re saying the right things to the right audience. At the right time.

The post 3 Church Plant Website Stages appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: 3 Church Plant Website Stages

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