Church Planter Training

September 28, 2007 Recent research reveals that greater care must be taken when training church planters for the field. Often church planters attend a one week/three day seminar. But is it enough? God has not called us to be foolish about our preparation for the work he has commissioned us to do. Any denomination that takes church planting seriously should focus on the issue of training. That training should be specifically designed to prepare a church planter for work on the field. Sixteen years of ministry in an established church did not prepare me for the difficulties involved in church-planting. Most of what I learned I gained through reading and mentoring from outside my own denomination. I was lacking a broad base of knowledge required to be an effective church planter. A proper training, specifically designed for church planters, would have given me a greater level of success. This realization that specialized training is a necessary part of good church-planting has grown over the last decade. Bob Logan was one of the first to offer a “boot camp” for church planters. The success of those boot camps has led to the development of others. Now, dozens of parachurch organizations that offer the training needed to prepare planters more adequately for the process. While many church and parachurch organizations have recognized the need for this type of training, few have researched the impact of training on church-planting. An analysis completed by the North American Mission Board, on the church-planting process of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2003, shows that training made a major impact on the effectiveness of their church-planting efforts. Worship attendance of churches whose pastor had received specialized training was three times higher than those who received no training. Church-planting training has become a key component of the church-planting process. The research studied the difference between struggling church plants and fast-growing church plants. A total of 21 difference were discovered between these two groups. One of the findings revealed that more training may be need to prepare a church planter than has been typically offered. Planters leading fast-growing church plants indicated they received significantly more church plating training than did leaders of struggling church plants. A majority of struggling church plants (76.5 percent) received less than a week of training. By contrast, a majority of fast-growing church planters (74.4 percent) received one week or more of training more than two weeks of training. The implication of this discovery is huge. Most church planting seminars are designed around a two to three day event. This study implies that further development is needed to extend the training of individuals in order to prepare them for the specialized field of church planting. Whether that training comes all at once or is broken into smaller pieces may be inconsequential. Most denominations would never dream of sending a missionary to a foreign field without adequate preparation. Missionaries are taught would about the culture and traditions, along with a host of other issues pertaining to the mission field. Many missionaries spend months on end at language schools learning how to speak the language so they share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, when it comes to the missions field at our back door we send a planter to a three day seminar and wish them the best. If church planting is as important as we claim it to be, then we must do better.

Posted 9/28/2007 in Stephen Gray	2 Comments - Add Comment
Comments:
9/29/2007 1:35:00 PM \| Eric Schlange
As an attender and leader of one of those struggling church plants started by untrained people, I thoroughly agree. One problem I see is that some church "plants" are really just disenfranchised folks starting something themselves because they're not happy at their current church. Getting training is often the furthest thing from their minds...they just want to get out and do something fresh and new, and don't realize what's really involved until they're knee-deep in it!
9/29/2007 1:41:00 PM \| stephen
Often church plants of this kind start off with good intentions, but soon find they carry the same problems in their DNA as the church they just left. Trained planters are far more likely to be aware of potential problems and avert meltdown. I ave always said, "If they leave their church, disgruntled, to come to yours, it's only a mater of time before they leave yours. Church plants that start as a split, often carry enough spiritual disease to infect the new church.