Gathering Season: Part 1 (Planning Series 3 of 6)

The second season is church development in the gathering season. The focus in the gathering season is on gathering the core group and the launch team. To use the agricultural imagery we're using in this lesson, the focus is on the seed. In the previous season of preparing, the focus was on the sower preparing and equipping the church planter. In the gathering season, the goal is for the sower to begin sowing by proclaiming the Gospel and the vision of the church resulting in a healthy core group and a launch team for the young church plant. However, this doesn't mean that the only focus of this season is to gather people together in these groups. There are a number of things that begin in this season that will impact the future shape of the church in a very significant way. 

For this reason, the gathering season must also be a time of building patterns into the life of the young church. Things like the effective coaching for the church leader, effective strategies for evangelism and discipleship, for fellowship and other small groups, as well as networking in your community.

First, let's consider coaching. Few things are as important as having a qualified coach to work with you during this season. Especially if that coach will help you develop a personal learning contract that will develop your ministry or character competencies including regular meetings for encouragement, accountability, reflection, refocusing, and planning. Every church planter should have a coach, someone who is regularly checking in with them to help them stay on track with implementing their church planting and development plan. Someone who is checking in with them personally. It's best to have this relationship established before moving to the field, but if you haven't, it is crucial that you have a church planting and development coach from the very beginning of the gathering season.

There should be a coaching relationship that includes regularly scheduled meetings at least once every other week but preferably weekly. A coach is someone to ask you questions. A good coach is an empathetic, active listener. He'll celebrate wins with you, care for you, evaluate and strategize, help you develop skills and character. He'll challenge you.

There are a number of structures for effective coaching. There is one-on-one coaching. There are coaching clusters which usually feature a coach and two or more church planters. There's even peer coaching when you can't find a coach with a group of planters or leaders in the same or similar stages of ministry. These usually work best with a group of three sometimes called a "Coaching Triad". In this setup, each planter takes a turn at a monthly meeting. 30 minutes each of sharing struggles and concerns in their ministry or in their personal life, and they are uninterrupted by the other two church planters. After all three church planters have shared their 30 minutes uninterrupted, then there is a time of prayer, and then afterwards the church planters are able to enjoy each other's friendship and talk more specifically about the problems that were shared during the triad.

Although face-to-face personal relationships are always best, there is virtual coaching using resources online, including support groups. We need to learn to take advantage of the technology that's been developed if you can. You can have coaching, mentoring, and encouraging relationships through video conferencing. If you're going to a place where you're physically distant from others, like an unreached people group or a particularly difficult ministry situation, you can still have these relationships across miles. One of the greatest mistakes church planters make is to fail in this area of taking responsibility for effective coaching. Coaching responsibility primarily falls to you. It does not rest with your denomination or mission agency or network. It does not rest with the coach. It rests with you. Take the initiative. Seek it out. It's one of the most important things you can do during this season.

The gathering season is about much more than establishing a healthy coaching relationship. As we've said, this is the seed stage so it includes significant care in developing the initial strategies across the church's life. Let's first consider networking strategies. Networking is intentionally building authentic relationships with people as a way of life in order to understand them and assist them in their spiritual journey. Any church leader, and particularly someone going into church planting, is constantly establishing relationships. Connecting with people through related interests, mutual friends, in any number of ways. This is networking.

The value of networking during this season can hardly be overstated. The results are often staggering. The vast majority of Christians, when asked who is responsible for their coming to Christ and being folded into their current church, answer, "A friend. A relative." A relationship in their network. To consider it in the realm of business where the term networking is perhaps more often used, studies have shown that a referral generates 80% more results than a cold call or a door to door sales person. 70% of all jobs are found through a person's network of relationships.

Taking advantage of these dynamics in church development means wisely using the systems of connection that are natural to human society. It will definitely mean considering how you can put your natural hobbies and interests to use in connecting with others in a legitimate way. It also means expanding your interests into new areas sometimes to connect with people you would not otherwise. It usually also means connecting, when appropriate, with community leaders such as commissioners, law enforcement, heads of non-profits, school principals, and others. Networking of this sort is a necessary aspect of becoming a church that is engaged with and serving its community well.

It is important for the church leader during this time to have a well-defined networking strategy. Thinking through these dynamics, and putting into practice actions that will lead you to connect meaningfully with others while overcoming the common barriers to implementing a networking strategy such as fear and apathy.

Networking strategies naturally lead to the next area. Evangelism strategies. This will be the beginnings of you putting into practice the work you did in your church development plan earlier in this course. Using the insights that you gained about your ministry focus group to communicate the Gospel to them. This will be deciding on how you will communicate the Gospel. It could be event Evangelism like large meetings where you invite all to come and hear. It could be contact Evangelism where it would be culturally appropriate to go to marketplaces, parks, and places where people congregate to engage them directly with the Gospel presentation. It could simply friendship evangelism where you are focusing primarily on entering into a longer process of befriending and living alongside, working alongside, those you're hoping to reach. Oftentimes including them, being incorporated into your church community or groups, in some way before they even believe.

For others, it might be appropriate to do what is called "Public Forum Evangelism" where you participate in public discussion groups where a number of ideas are shared and promoted around certain topics. For many, the open doors are found through mercy evangelism where you serve people in significant ways. Where they are hurting. Where they have needs. Making a positive social impact. A demonstration of Gospel power and service in a way of earning the right to speak to them of the truths of Christ.

It will most likely be a mixture of some of these or even others, but the point here is that you identify a recognizable strategy that you plan to implement during this critical gathering season. Networking and evangelism strategies will lead people to being gathered, which leads to our next area: Fellowship strategies.

Here you are establishing ways that you will lead people that you meet through networking and evangelism into groups or community that will lead to deepened relationships, discipleship, and service. This can begin by starting your initial cell group. The aim here is not to establish a complicated or complex fellowship structure for your church. You should be establishing something that is simple, transferrable, accountable. The idea here is to create a reproducible structure in a small group that will grow and expand as your church grows into health.

These small groups or cell groups can take many forms. They can be traditional Bible studies that meet during the week at someone's home with a defined curriculum. They can be groups that are dedicated primarily to prayer, or groups that are dedicated to service that meet in any number of places. They can be small discipleship groups. The point in developing a fellowship strategy is to create patterns in your young church that lead to the beauty of the church being lived out in real, practical ways among the people of your church as they deepen their relationships and love for each other.

Never forget that the health of a church is often determined by the health of the small groups. This is why it is essential during this gathering season for the church leader to be starting, growing, and multiplying healthy Gospel-centered small groups.