by Guest Blogger: Doug Foltz
I worked with a planter once who had 40 adults on his launch team from day one. Three months later the number of people on the team had shrunk to 25 adults. What happened? The team lost momentum. Let’s start with the assumption that you will have at least 50 adults on your launch team. Most church planters are great at building the team to about 20 people, or the size of a rather large small group. The problem is what’s next? You may still be months away from holding services. So how do you build momentum? How do you keep the team growing?
The problem for many lies in the fact that they are trying to build the launch team on their own. The answer lies in turning those twenty adults in church planters. We are a consumer culture. Let’s face it. As pastor’s we sometimes feed into this cultural sin. As a church planter, if you are focused on building the team yourself you are really just creating a consumer culture where you are the product. At some point, those 20 adults must be commissioned and sent. They must see themselves as church planters and just as you have invested in them, they must in turn invest in those God has given them influence over.
When this happens, growth will naturally occur. And to be ready for it, you must have a plan in place. It’s easy to meet in your living room crowding in 20 adults, but what happens when its 30 adults? What about 50? I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer here. Some planters take a small group model to the launch team and reproduce groups. Others, move into a larger meeting facility as the team growth. Some do a hybrid of both. Some use service in the community to gather the group. Others focus more on marketing and fun events.
Here is my advice. Dream about what God is calling the church to become. How do you envision the discipleship happening? How do you envision leadership development happening? In order to build and keep momentum, use this vision as the foundation for what you do with the launch team now. Remember you are setting the DNA of the church. Church DNA is a lot like concrete. It might be wet now, but there is quickly a day coming when it will dry and then to change it you will have to chip away at it.
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We are about 6 months in and just like you said in the blog we got 20-25 and worked to mobilize them to be “church planters” but have bogged out at 40-50. We are in the middle of going deeper, spiritual development, etc. but it is a slow process.
All of our growth comes through relationships and it just seems slow and hard to capture momentum in a smaller group. Any ideas how to capture momentum when it is driven by relationships and therefore more private and personal?