Gathering Season: Part 2 (Planning Series 4 of 6)

The intended outcome of the networking evangelism and fellowship strategies in the gathering season is to form a core group, a launch team, and ministry teams. It's helpful to define what we mean by a launch team, and a core group, and ministry teams, since these terms are often used interchangeably.

Think of four concentric circles. The first circle, the largest and broadest circle represents interested contacts, friends, neighbors, people who are aware of your new church, and have shown some level of interest. These are people who may say things like, "Let me know when you begin worship, and we might join with you."

The second circle, a smaller circle within the larger one, represents your core group. The core group includes all of the people who have been gathered through your networking evangelism and fellowship strategies. They're normally attending some kind of regular meeting or small group that you're overseeing. Your core group includes everyone from the youngest child to your most mature believer, as well as unbelievers who are maybe intrigued by what you are doing but haven't come to faith yet, but they're prepared to be a part of your new church.

Once you started gathering the core group, it is essential that you assess who they are, what they believe, that you get a good idea of those whom you've gathered. Remember, in this season, you can't assume they agree with your particular vision for the church or even all your beliefs. You'll need to continue patiently and lovingly teaching, inspiring, and casting your vision. This is when you begin presenting to them much of the work you've done in creating your church development plan. Helping them to see and understand the things that you've identified in your research and your planning. As you do this, you'll be able to begin identifying those people who align with your ministry vision, philosophy, purposes, values, and strategies that you've developed in this course. And you'll also be able to begin identifying those people who do not agree with your ministry, vision, and philosophy.

Learning this early on can help you as a leader. Nurture and guide them in thinking through their own ministry vision, values, beliefs, and strategies, and how their experiences have impacted their outlook on church and ministry. Learning this early on can also save both you and them from unnecessary conflict later. While you want to include everyone in your new church, especially those who are a part of your original core group, it is inevitable that some people won't be able to align themselves with the way the new church is taking shape, the direction it's going, and maybe not even like you as a church leader. While you must listen and try to be responsive to their needs, their insights, and desires, some people will inevitably drop out of the core group. And some may even need to be asked to leave, because of conflict and threatening the unity of the group. Never forget that often the key to a healthy new church is not just those who are included, but those who leave.

Think now of a third, smaller circle within the core group circle. This circle represents the launch team. Membership in the launch team is by invitation only, and is normally comprised only of people who've made a very serious commitment along with you the leader. This often includes at least five commitments.

First, a commitment to the vision. They're in essential agreement with the church leader's vision, philosophy, purposes, values, and beliefs that you have built into your church development plan in this course. Second, would be a commitment to prayer, to pray regularly for the church, for the leadership, the community, and for one another. Third, would be a commitment to serving, regular attendance at launch team group meetings, and helping to start and/or develop one of the ministry teams under the launch team using their gifts and talents. This normally includes a commitment to being trained by the church leader. Fourth, a commitment to financial giving, giving sacrificially, normally this means tithing to the emerging new church. And fifth, a commitment to reaching out. Reaching out to their Christian and non-Christian friends through networking, gathering, and evangelism. Some church leaders find it effective to ask all launch team members to sign a written agreement expressing their commitment and defining their roles and expectations of their involvement, including a very specific amount of time, usually at least six months.

The fourth, or final circle, is actually several smaller circles within the launch team circle. These circles represent the ministry teams I referred to earlier. The most important outcome of the launch team is the development of all the new church ministry teams that are needed to launch a healthy new church. This is where the church leader draws on the primary purposes or the vital signs of a healthy church that we learned earlier in these courses, and develops ministry teams aligned with each of these Biblical purposes or vital signs of a healthy church. Ministry teams being developed by the launch team members normally include at least a prayer team, an outreach or a service team, groups, discipleship team, worship team, children and youth team, and normally a finance or administration team.

One of the biggest mistakes church planters make is to focus primarily on developing a worship team during this season, in order to start public worship as soon as possible. The result is often gathering people to your new church in worship whom your church is not capable yet of serving well and developing into mature disciples of Jesus Christ. Instead, the focus of the church leader during this gathering season should be more on developing all the critically important ministries through key ministry teams, such as prayer, outreach, discipleship, mercy, fellowship, and leadership development. So, that when the public worship ministry is launched, it's always launched alongside these other healthy ministries. During this season, the church leader needs to avoid allowing an arbitrary predetermined date or timeline to determine when to begin public worship. Instead, the leader needs to determine what are the key launch indicators or milestones that will determine when the new church is ready to launch all of its public ministries, including public worship.

Launching your new church ministries is a wonderful milestone, but it's one milestone in many and one that is much more of a starting line than a finish line. It is the culmination of the first two seasons of preparing and gathering. And it's the introduction to the next two seasons of starting and growing that will be our focus in the church renewal course to follow this one.