Vineyard Church North Phoenix | How I Prepare a Potential Church Planter

Preparing a church planter is much like trying to prepare one of your children to face everything in life correctly as you send them out from under the protection of your covering – a difficult task for sure. Basically, I believe we can do with children the very best we can do, but being prepared for “everything” before sending out your child is not going to happen. So it is with a sending pastor preparing a new church planter for what awaits them; we know that the trials of experience must be the final proving ground for their success.

As a CPC, Sending Pastor and Coach (not necessarily at the same moment), I have seen what I believe to be critically important elements to the success of new plants. Three critical ingredients go together from the first moment someone says they want to go into training to be a Vineyard Church planter. I feel the mix of these three critical elements must be on-going for the duration of the training process. The three components of good preparation are completion of courses in the Vineyard Leadership Institute; OJT (on the job training) in the local church; and honest evaluation by the coach, assessors, and sending pastor throughout the process of preparation.

Vineyard Leadership Institute is the correspondence opportunity offered by the Vineyard Church of Columbus, Ohio. VLI provides any student wanting seminary grade biblical training with two years of intense, high quality DVD and CD courses leading to a two year Associate Degree. We believe that all potential church planters, unless they are already seminary-trained, should prepare themselves thoroughly and with excellence through VLI. It was John Wimber who said, “You can’t give away what you don’t have.” And that’s even more true for young, inexperienced church planters. You better have all the scriptural training you can get under your belt before you start any moves toward actually planting a Vineyard.

On the job training. I believe that one of the most important jobs a sending pastor has with his/her potential church planter is to provide personal training with the church staff and leadership while the church planter is still at the sending church. We have found that the two years of VLI training provides the perfect time also to put the trainee into real-world pastoring duties, while you observe their strengths and weaknesses and help them hone whatever needs sharpening. I suggest that the sending pastor work with the Area CPC and coach if applicable to get the Church Planting Pre-Interview Questionnaire and use the 12 items identified in that questionnaire as the basis for the OJT. Let the potential church planter work under your guidance for everything from janitorial duties to Kinship leadership, financial management to preaching. As I keep these 12 key leadership basics before me as my overall evaluation template for on the job training, I am able to see quickly where strengths and weaknesses are and to work hands-on with the individual in the weaker areas.

If during the two years the planter is going through VLI, I put them into every possible real situation in my own church and let them experience first-hand how it is to “gather people for kinship groups” or “prepare and manage a budget for a children’s program” or “teach/preach for a communion service,” then they can see and I can see where they need extra training and get it for themselves before they break out on their own.

Honest evaluation. Before we sign off on allowing this person to step out and “give it a try” as a Vineyard Church Planter, someone needs to be brutally honest about anything that we, through discernment or simply our own experience, perceive might spell failure for these pioneering pastors. Last year we, as a movement, saw too many church plants fail. I believe this is partially due to everyone wanting to be too friendly and sweet with our “friend” – the new church planting person. If we see some pastoral weakness (review again the 12 areas of basic pastoring/church planting qualities) during our time of review and training, we must speak honestly and get them more training before releasing them. Tough Love...it’s easy to say but very difficult to actually do.

These three areas have served me well in preparing church planters to be sent out.