Planting Space

Keeping Church Planters Focused on People

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What is Project Management for Church Planting pt. 2

February 3rd, 2010 by Doug
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Rookies in Nascar have a yellow stripe on their bumpers.  Yellow in Nascar is symbolic of caution.  It tells the other drivers, “Watch out!  Rookie driver.”  The majority of church planters are rookies.  I find that most church planters only start one church.  Like rookie drivers, they are inexperienced and can have trouble navigating unfamiliar territory.  For rookie drivers, a good crew chief and a good spotter are essential.  The crew chief coaches the driver through the race.  The spotter gets a bird’s eye view and tells the driver what’s coming up so that they can avoid wrecks.  A project manager functions much like the spotter.  They have been around church planting for a long time and can help the church planter navigate through the tough spots.  They can also alert the driver to what’s coming up and any red flags along the way.  OK enough Nascar analogy.

The Project Manger helps the church planter create a plan that will accomplish the vision for the new church.  Because the project manager has been a part of planting several churches, they have a unique insight into the planning process and what it takes to plant a healthy church.  Then the project manager oversees the plan and lets the church planter know what key tasks need to be worked on when.  For example, every church planter knows they need to purchase equipment.  But few know when to purchase it and where to get the best deals.  The role of the project manager is to understand that if the church is starting in September and the first preview service is at the end of August then equipment needs to be purchased in June, assembled at tested at the beginning of August.  To do that a facility must be chosen in May and an equipment list developed.  To do that the church planter must network in the community and do demographics to determine the best meeting locations.  The project manager also is responsible to find the right solutions at the best prices from trusted vendors.

Remember the mission of a project manager: Keeping church planters focused on people.

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Our Favorite Blogs this Week

January 29th, 2010 by Bradley
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Each week we read through hundreds of blogs by dozens of authors so you don’t have to. Here are our favorites this week:

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Changes to IRS Application for 501c3 Exemption

January 28th, 2010 by Bradley
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The IRS form 1023 is what we use to file for a church or nonprofit’s 501c3 exemption. As of January 4, 2010, there are two big changes:

  • The submission fee was increased to $850 (from $750)
  • They are creating an online submission system that will only cost $200. Only it’s not ready yet.

Sign up for the IRS Newsletter to be notified when they finally get the cyber assistant up and running. If you need to file soon but can wait just a bit, you might be able to save $650. Of course, we probably shouldn’t count on the IRS to do anything quickly except cash your check.

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What is Project Management for Church Planting pt. 1

January 27th, 2010 by Doug
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When New Life Christian Church started their first multi-site campus, Lead Pastor Brett Andrews sat down to formulate the plan.  He had a compelling vision for what the new campus would look like and how they would effectively reach pre-Christians.  But then came the details.  Brett and his team quickly learned that there were all sorts of details that needed to happen in order for the new campus to be started.  Brett was left wondering why every time a church was started were we recreating the wheel.  Out of this frustration, project management was born.

When starting a new church, there are several things a church planter must do that are one time only tasks.  A good example is filing all the legal paperwork (Articles of Incorporation, EIN, 501c3, etc.)  Because the church planter isn’t an expert in these tasks and has had no formal training it takes them a long time to figure out resulting in less time spent on evangelism and discipleship, which results in a smaller impact.  Our project managers are experts in the one time only tasks for starting new churches.  Our mission is simple: Keep church planters focused on people.  That’s why our blog might not be the most exciting, controversial, though provoking blog out there.  But hopefully you find the posts will save your time and money allowing you to spend more time with people.

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Tips for Writing a Press Release

January 25th, 2010 by Bradley
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Free publicity is available via the press if you let them know what’s going on at your new church. Every press release submitted to the media won’t go to print, however, mostly due to poor composition or incomplete information. If you’re going to submit a press release, do it right!

Do’s and Don’ts

Brad Haugaard offers us press release do’s and don’ts at his Church PR website. He appears to be a former journalist, so you’ll get an insider’s perspective.

A Ready-Made Outline

The folks over at Internet Evangelism Day have put together a great article about writing press releases. It even includes a basic outline to follow so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Check It Before You Send It

Lastly, before you submit it, don’t forget to run your press release through HubSpot’s free Press Release Grader. You’ll get constructive feedback to make sure your press release is the best it can be. That can only increase your chances of being published.

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Best Blogs of the Week

January 22nd, 2010 by Bradley
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Each week we read through hundreds of blogs by dozens of authors so you don’t have to. Here are our favorites this week:

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Utilizing Google Apps for Church Planting

January 20th, 2010 by Doug
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At Passion 4 Planting we set up all of our church planters on Google Apps.  It’s free and its a great solution for email, document storage, calendars, and a whole lot more.  All you need is a URL to get started and you can be up an running in no time.  There is a little tech involved so I’ve include a Guide to Setting Up Google Apps.  The guide is written assuming the URL was purchased from GoDaddy.  If you purchased from a different domain registrar, don’t worry.  Google has instructions for several different ones.

Once you have completed your 501(c)3, you can apply for a free upgrade to the education edition of Google Apps.  The biggest advantage over the standard version is that you get 24/7 support from Google for free.  Thank you Google.  To apply for the education upgrade follow the instructions provided by Google.  The online form only takes about five minutes to fill out.

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Using the Super Bowl as an Outreach Opportunity

January 18th, 2010 by Bradley
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This is a popular event to tie to an outreach opportunity, especially when trying to connect with men. Did you know, though, that the NFL has been aggressive with protecting their copyrights against churches?

Here are 3 basic rules for a Super Bowl party that the Church Law Group has put together there’s no penalty flag thrown on your event:

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Recent blog posts relevant to church planters

January 16th, 2010 by Patrick
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Here’s the best of the recent blog posts we’ve seen:

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Cloud Computing Makes Mobile Church Easier

January 13th, 2010 by Doug
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TechCrunch announced yesterday that Google would be rolling out support to upload any file type to Google Docs.  It’s basically cloud storage for all your files.  A nice advantage is Google’s sharing feature.  You are able to share files easily on Google Docs by simply entering an email address.  You get 1GB free and then can purchase additional storage for 25 cents a gig.  This is about the same price you could expect to pay per GB for traditional hard drive storage.  The advantage is you can access the files stored in the Google cloud from anywhere you have internet connection including many smart phones.  Google is likely moving in this direction to better serve their upcoming Chrome OS release and subsequent laptops that will run Chrome and live largely in the cloud.

For church planters this is a great solution.  You will now be able to upload videos, images, database files, etc. and share them with each other through Google.  Imagine a volunteer editing a video at home and then just uploading it through Google Docs and sharing it with the pastoral team.  No more worry about how to get the file from place to place.  As long as you have internet connection, its just there.  This also provides handy backup functionality.  Most people knowadays back up critical files or their entire computer to an external hard drive.  This is a great solution until someone steals your computer and backup drive, they both fail at the same time (happened to me), or there is a fire that destroys them both.  Storing critical files in the cloud ensures you will always have a copy.

While cloud computing is tremendously handy, I still advice you to keep local backups on a hard drive.  While Google has a pretty good reputation, if they have a data failure you’ll be out of luck if you haven’t backed files up locally.

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