Video Transcript: The Launching Blueprint

Now, when you're launching your church, it's important to get that launching  blueprint together. If we're building a house, you need a blueprint, you need an  architectural drawing. Now that you're at that point of launching, you really want  to lay down clearly what that blueprint looks like. Now in every church plant,  there's a gestation period, every church plant needs an appropriate gestation  period, for a variety of reasons. But two stand out, above all, A to identify the  contributions and limitations of the launch team members. And two, to reach a  critical mass of people significant enough to populate the ministry teams or  small groups. So this gestation period, is really about laying the foundations and I've seen it where, where church planters that just forgot about that, just, hey,  we're just gonna have a worship service, we're just gonna have small groups,  we're just gonna start the house church. And what happens is, problems arise  because while A, the members of the launch team are not totally bought in, yet,  their gifts have been misidentified, critical mass has not been reached, and then  people feel like nothing's happening. So this gestation period is very important.  Let's talk about that second piece, determining critical mass, critical mass can  be explained by the number of cars in the parking lot, that just suggests  something legitimate is happening inside. If you pass by a restaurant, or in a  thriving metro area and don't see any cars in the parking lot. The restaurant isn't  as appealing as the one where the parking lot is full. Haven't you been like that?  You know, my wife and I were driving to an area that we don't know, if we pass a restaurant and there are cars, we typically will stop and give the restaurant a  chance. But if there's nobody there, often, we just pass right on by because we  ask ourselves, why isn't anyone there. Now a critical mass, even in a house  church, or a small house church is still there. So you want to understand the  environment in a way that helps people realize that this is something special  that's going on. But if we're out in the country, and pass by a diner, and this is  again, just really saying the same thing, where to car Hi, where two cop cars,  and a pickup truck were the parking lot we might say, this looks like a good  place to eat. Critical Mass is culture dependent, it's impossible to put a number  on it. So we talk about gathering enough people so that when you launch the  church, it appears you're actually viable. So critical mass, the look of Critical  Mass is very important. So in your blueprint, you're planting a community toward critical mass. So there's you as a church planter, then a few people, family  members, some people you know, then it grows into some people and some  more people. And at that more people level, there's a place for critical mass  occurs, and then a crowd and then a bigger crowd. And and this is a vitally  important thing. Now you say, Well, my church is only going to be 150. That's  really what I'm called at the maximum. Well, it's still that sort of look, you  interpret it to your situation, maybe some of you feel, hey, we really want to have a church that has a large presence in this community, then you have to look at  your blueprint a different differently. Let's say you're in a culture where 

Christianity is oppressed and, and to you a large crowd might be just a house  church. But even there, you want to be very sensitive, when you start out. A few  people meeting in a home is amazing, and a few more people, but you may  have to divide in certain cultures. So critical mass could be we have two house  churches, meeting in two separate parts of the city. So you look at your situation  and look at your blueprint, and you see how your church fits into your vision.  Why Critical Mass is so important, instead of a critical instead of a critical mass.  The church is simply an overgrown small group and that's what happens. I'm  just gonna stop this right here. If you don't think about that, what the default  button is, is that you can just sort of get together in your little small group and  that's it and that becomes a closed, inward growing small group. The Gathering  group is of such insufficient numerical size that it begins to subtly to defend itself by citing the benefits of it's size intimacy, connectedness and inclusiveness.  Doing so unwittingly creates a barrier, making it impossible for any new people  to find their way into the young church, then inevitably happens, the remaining  entrepreneurial leaders begin to fade away. So when you start a new church,  you're creating this buzz in the community or amongst those who could be  reached. And if you don't get that blueprint to move toward critical mass, even  those first people that got excited with you about the possibilities, start believing  that, you know, nothing's going on here. And many times, they'll feel they need  to move on to another opportunity. Is this a big problem? Let me tell you, this is  a big problem with all of the apostolic minded people gone, the remaining  people circle the wagons, focus on their needs, and expect the planter to focus  on them. You know, what happens next, the church hangs on for many months,  if not years, justifying its existence with false thinking such as, we're really a  great group of people. And we love each other so much. Now, it's not false to  think like that. We're a great people, group of people or church, we love each  other so much, but as a reason to stay small and not reach the community is the issue. So you want to be in your blueprint thinking about growth. So let's talk  about this preview season. Now this gestation season, one thing you can do is,  is get people together, maybe even you can do a preview service, where it's a  taste of what is to come, practice worship for the team down the road, and  opportunity to invite friends an opportunity for well wishers to come a rehearsal  to work out the bugs, this is a great time to follow up with new invited context.  So even when you're in that gestation period before a like launch of whatever it  is, if it's a specially Sunday morning, type of church plant, have a few preview  services and and do some things that sort of, you know, whet everyone's  appetite for what things are going to come to be. But always with this idea that  you're looking to launch, when there's critical mass. Here's some other activities, you might have several tastes and see events, you might develop a word of  mouth presence, I'm saying that in, in the future, this is going to happen, here's  a little taste, the goal is to keep adding 25% More people at every event. So if 

you have like a preview thing, a worship service, or a fellowship, dinner or  whatever, let's say you start with 25. The goal for the next one is to have 50 And  then maybe the next one to have 75. And maybe the next one to have you know 120 and take offerings right away, make it like this is for real train leaders, lay  leader lay upfront presenter so they know it's not just you doing it. And it's like  you're not alone, but others are standing with you put a follow up system, put it  in place with a database. Remember, the mission field for critical mass, you  know, in what you're really thinking about is is constantly strategizing. How can  we reach the people group to keep growing and while you're doing the whole  thing is try to get more cells, multiple cells are formed. And remember, when we  talk about cells and small groups, we're talking about tasks type of groups, we're talking about fellowship group life groups, these ways to get more relational  structure to your church plant. So you have a preview season, and then you  have an exhibition season, literally on the day, and hour at the location of the  new church. What you're really doing now is now really getting to practice and  you're not even launching this church. And again, this blueprint, as you probably  have been realizing is really suited toward, let's say, a traditional church plant  with a worship service grand opening. But again, many of the principles apply to  many situations in the world. But in the exhibition season, what you'll see is the  team gets used to the schedule, so you might go 10 weeks of meeting at the  same time, but you're not launching the opening of the church yet. The  hospitality team and the assimilation team get powered up. sacrament of  baptism and the Lord's Supper are celebrated here. You're but you're working  toward critical mass. The leaders teams are getting mobilized and again you  keep a Identifying the gifts of your leaders and you find out who's with you and  who's not. Finally, there's the public launch. And you know, the common word is  grand opening. And in, I would say grand opening many, many times in my  church planting experience. But really, the grand opening is a word that's not as  popular today. Because the word Grand Opening feels so much like in the  business thing. So the most common best practices in church planting now is to  stay away from the word grand opening, it might be, it might just be the  announcing in our community, you know, Colorado Community Church, or  announcing the opening of this new church in an area. Again, that's something  for you and your team to think about. But this whole period of time, from the  beginning of the effort of saying I'm called to an area to plant a church, to the  plant of the church is 12 to 18 months. That's just what it is. That's how long it  takes for the relationship base to form the structure for the first service,  especially if you're in the sort of more traditional type of church planting. In a lot  of ways, get get more process thinking than results thinking. So the results are  more healthy. Go through the steps don't fight them. The public launch mild  milestones, okay, one, the capacity to add significant numbers of people the  month to multiply small groups, offering ownership that people will give to your 

church, even if your a bi vocational leader in church planter from day one, get  that in the DNA, of being able to share it with the work of the church and to  make contributions this is their church. This is a place where everyone tithes,  essential ministry in place that connects to the mission field, like what would be  the essential thing needed, it might be childcare, it might be one or two  ministries that really connect with that people group that mission field you're  called to reach. What about the discipleship growth and numerical growth? Are  you thinking about that? Is that something that continues and if also you  stagnate in your growth? Why are you stagnating and addressing that, don't just  go after other things. Address the numerical growth? Now, some people have a  little bit of an allergic reaction to numerical growth say, Well, why do we worry  about numerical growth, God will bring the results in? Well, I look at it this way  God does bring the results in. But we're faithful to be looking at how are we  growing? How are we reaching more the numerical growth tells me as a church  planter that I'm effective or not effective in presenting to the community because  the reality is the gospel is effective. If enough people hear it, and if enough  people if our word of mouth is suffering, or there's a reason, maybe I need to  look at my presentations, maybe I need to recast how the worship service looks  or something. But numerical growth is a milestone. Leadership people are  identified and put into place. While this is all happening it's all about constantly  looking for who else can be mobilized what other stages can be created. In this  time, there's a really serious focus on evangelism. What is it? What will it be?  One of the hardest lessons we learned in consulting with churches is that if the  pastor ceases to model inviting to the public, and pushing the Great  Commission, then the congregation will become a closed system. An equally  hard pill to swallow is that in the majority of church plants, people are so  completely extracted from the culture and spend so much time with the church  people that over a short period of time, they have no close friends outside the  church. In a new church plant, the pastor is constantly modeling engagement  with people. You know, one of the things that I would do in church plants is in  many of my sermons, and again, I'd ask permission, I would mention what's  happening in the lives of people that that are new to the church that were just  being reached a lot of times too when when you're preaching to have sort of  stories about you, witnessing to others, that sort of models or have a testimony  on Sunday, have one of your leaders who is sharing the gospel in your  community. Evangelism is at the forefront when planting a new church. Let's just look at five points about that. The church planter stays in the reaching mode,  keeping, modeling evangelism. Okay? What does that mean? It means that no  matter how big the church gets, the church planter is always in the reaching  mode. It sets the culture for the entire organization, the catalectic leader stays  expanding. So as you as a church planter, and you in your team are always  thinking about how to reach more, the minute you give up on that it sort of sets a

message and sets the culture of the church to be one of stopping plateauing.  The nurturing leader supports the catalectic leader. So now what happens is,  you have shepherding deacons or elders or ministers or leaders. And you're  really trying to know, there are the catalectic leaders and there are now the  nurturing leaders. But what happens nurturing leaders need to keep the  catalectic leaders on fire for what they do, if they can help them. What happens  often is the catalectic leaders get bogged down into doing nurturing. And then  what happens is they're not doing catalectic leading anymore because they're in the nurturing. And if enough nurturing takes up their time, that bringing new  people stops with those leaders, the new converts are offered training at a CLI  mentor center. You know, that is a great option for everyone in the Christian  leaders Institute ecosystem, as you reach leaders and need them trained, hey,  send them to CLI or better yet, have a mentor center right at your new church.  So you have a micro seminary, what an easy program to have at your new  church, you have all these classes and all that all you really have to do is have a small group of people have to have an internet connection. Maybe in some  countries, the church provides an internet connection for those leaders who  want to grow. And fifth, the catalectic and nurturing cycle is created. So what's  happening is, is there's those who make it happen in America, we call it the  rainmakers. And then there's those who till the soil and make more fruit. Those  are the nurturers in that catalectic and the nurture, people start working together, and those who are reaching more and those who are raising up more quality  leaders work together. That's a powerful process of evangelism in a new church. James and William talk about the elbow principle 80% of everyone who visits a  church, returns to that church and gradually becomes enfolded into that faith  community does so on the elbow of someone already connected to that church.  So what we want is people to invite their networks to come and see what you're  doing. So there's two things here now in a church plant, you are actually  creating new connections, okay. But once that new connection occurs, it's the  people they know, that are really going to populate the church in terms of its  impact, and get to that critical mass. Now, remember that 20% is some of those  new people in the catalytic leaders are going to go for those people and the  nurturing leaders of you get everybody on board. There are so many people in  elbow distance of those who already go to your church. So here you are, you're  getting ready to launch remember the truth, you must communicate is this truth,  the most people don't realize is we have moved to a attract culture. Where build  it and they will come works. It now we're at a invite culture, where people are far  more likely to show up at a church if a friend invites them. It used to be to just  build an attractional worship service, you just have a great worship service. And  somehow people would come and they wouldn't even necessarily know  anybody. We're not in the 1980s and 90s. When I was early in my church  planting, if you had incredible worship service, it seemed like people just 

showed up. But today, it's much more invite someone and the church will be  built. If that's not how you're thinking. You will have much frustration. So you  want to mobilize your catalectic leaders and your nurturing leaders to invite their  friends. So what is church planting? Truly it is a contact sport, your contacts and  contacts of the team, the church planter is the leader, the church planter needs  to meet 300 If he's bi vocational 1000, if he's vocational, think about that. If you  are paid to do this church plant by, let's say, a Sunday board, you're just going to need to meet 1000 people. That's right. Your job is to meet people not to be in  the study. Now, if you're a bi vocational, and you're working somewhere else,  you know, your going to meet people at work and all that, but you still have to  commit yourself in a lot of ways, especially beginning to be a little out of balance to life, meet people meet people meet people. So whether you're bi vocational or whether you're vocational, it is about starting with meeting people. Number two,  keep community one time events in the mix, even after the church plant opens.  In other words, you have the worship service, and you're getting into that flow.  But how do you keep more community inviting events in the mix? You know, and  this could be a seminar on parenting that your invite the whole community to, it  could be a play and a musical. As you get leaders that come forward, you could  sponsor a concert. How about a country dance, there's so many things to think  about as you do these one time events. The nice thing about a one time event is it's a one time event. And what I for real fun, I like to have a one time event as a  church planter every quarter. Now it'd be ideal if you can do it every month, but  every quarter seems about sustainable, especially if you're in the bi vocational  world if you're in the vocational world, or and there's more money that has been  funded into the church plant. Maybe you have other options before you. Number three, the church planter joins general clubs, even the country club, depending  on the village town city where you are reaching. somehow think about how do I  maybe you're going to be in a Toastmasters club or a business club. Maybe you  have the funding to be in a country club. But then if you are you become the  chaplain for people who are not reached for the Lord. Whatever your social  economic situations, whatever opportunities, the church planter needs to just  join these clubs and be part of where the community leaders are at and many of  them are already leaders. But they don't have that leadership under the Lordship of Christ right now. And they're wonderful people to reach so that they can help  you reach even others. Number four, when you meet when you meet people  have conversion. Okay, when you meet people, have conversations about your  narrative. Ask them to tell their story. Find out if there's a connection, that will  lead them to the next step. Ask people Hey, where are you at spiritually? Hey,  tell me about your family. Tell me about your life. And what happens for church  planter is somehow or other the conversations of the community, like continue to grow and grow. And if people start talking about their walk with God, number  five, when appropriate, scheduled the next meeting, always do that whoever you

meet with, if you see that the Lord may have a reason for you to connect.  There's a reason of a spiritual next step. What's that next meeting look like? It is  a contact sport to be a church planter. Here's something again, here are just  some expectations that I would share with you, from the wisdom of church  planting one critical mass in your area be thinking about that 50% of your time is about people, maybe even more, but at least 50%. Try to reach five people a  day. That's 25 people a week. Try to schedule three meetings a week. That's if  you're a vocational pastor that said to do this. If you are a bi vocational one, try  to meet two people a day, with two meetings a week, that's medium, you know,  meeting just 10 people a week total. You know, don't look at this and say to  yourself, you know what, there's no way I can do that. Just get in your mind. If  you're vocational. I'm gonna meet five people a day. I'm gonna do it. Three  meetings a week. Make it part of your life as a church planter. This is what I did.  And I'll tell you, the Lord blessed that and I found that when I didn't do that, all of a sudden things got stagnated, especially when you're starting brand new.  Number four, external accountability helps. You know, one thing I would do is I  have some accountable mentors and friends and I would report that I was  actually meeting people. Number five, formulate your meeting people plan, get  over negative self talk. The fact of the matter is, is if you're an introvert extrovert, it's all hard. And there might be a different plan for an introvert. But you need to  have a meeting people plan an extrovert, you got to learn how to listen and, and  how to initiate in a way that get people that want to be part of what you're doing.  Number six, get an effective elevator speech. Hi, yeah, hi, my name is Henry  Reyenga. And I'm from Delavan, Wisconsin. That's actually the circus town in  the 18th century, 19th century, and people go oh, really, really? You know, what  are you doing here? Well, I'm here because I want to plant a new church. Oh,  really? You know, and then tell a little bit about yourself. My own walk began  when I was in high school and and I've seen how powerful God is in my life.  See, in all, that was not really that great of an elevator speech. But it's  something and as a church planter, in in Ward, I was in a different people group, I would really focus on what I could say that in a hurry, would communicate, you  know, oh, and by the way, we're thinking about gathering some people who are  interested in a new church, are you one of them? Are you interested in New  church, and right away people got Yeah, I sort of am and then you get their  phone number. And lastly, really developed this concept of prayer, pray without  ceasing. Just have the whole church plant, bathe in prayer. I want to talk a little  bit of my about the taste and see events get circled back to that. Here's the  number one thing Fun, fun, fun fun at these tastes and see events, get a few  testimonies of the buzz of why this church plant is so crucial. Make, you know  regular events only once a quarter. At that taste and see event make sure  there's an opportunity for the vision narrative, why you're planting a church?  What's the problems to be solved in this community, and then hand off new 

attendees to team members. You know what, when you have a taste and see  events, a lot of times people will talk to you. And what you want always is say,  hey, you know, you're a dentist. I know a dentist over here that is in our team  

George, you meet the two together and get them into a fraternal relationship a  little bit. Or there's a lot of reasons like oh, you've got teenagers. So and so has  teenagers. Oh, you've got little kids, so and so has little kids. You are the  connector in chief. Never forget that. And that brings up this, you're the recruit  connector. Now, who will be those who will help you? So you're the connector in  chief who will be your recruit connectors? Well, they have given the gift of  hospitality obviously. Teach them how to greet everyone, but focus on  connecting people, not just Hi, welcome to church. I hope you like it. No. Oh, so  who are you? Oh, really. I know somebody that you might be interested in  meeting and then just bring people together. Connectors, ask hey, how long  have you been coming? How did you hear about the church? How do you spend your time in life? All those issues that we talked about in the people smart in  ministry class, these are great training issues for connectors as you raise up and I would even say, as you plant the church, get people into Christian leaders  Institute, have them do the Getting Started class and have them do the people  smart in ministry class. Those are great preparations for being a church planting  team. So here you go. You are putting your blueprint together here are important issues to look at and to think about. And you know what I know you can do it. By God's grace, bathed in prayer. You're getting this training at Christian leaders  Institute to make it even more effective. We have ordination options for you to be connected to the church of our Lord Jesus Christ as an agent, you're praying  about thinking about with your spouse, if you're married, you're on target for  church planting. And it is one of the most exciting things to see people reached  and God will make it happen as you are faithful and getting your plant all  together