by Nelson Searcy and Tommy Duke

Today we’re sharing the final post in a series on “Bootstrapping” a new church, or starting with very little (or no) outside funding.  While this isn’t the ideal way to plant a church, there are a number of lessons to be learned through the process.  You can read the rest of this series of posts here: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Here are the final two lessons:

2. APPRECIATE: YOU’LL BETTER APPRECIATE RESOURCES WHEN GOD DOES SEND THEM
The above lessons (if you apply them well) will place you in the rare position of truly being a good and faithful servant. Each one will guide you as you grow in your stewardship of the resources God does send. As you prove yourself faithful with a little – both in the way of financial support and newfound wisdom – God will entrust you with more (Matt 25).

1. DEPEND: YOU’LL CONSTANTLY BE REMINDED OF WHOSE CHURCH IT IS
Your church is not yours. Bootstrapping will re-teach you this truth day in and day out. Each time things are uncertain, each time the bills are coming due and you don’t see any way to pay them, you’ll be driven back to a complete awareness of the one who owns your church in the first place. Let your financial dependence on Christ remind you of his words from Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”

As we wrap up, let me reiterate: A fully resourced church plant has a greater chance of reaching health and stability than one that’s underfunded.

However, to all of you out there who are struggling to make ends meet, don’t lose hope! Strewn along the difficult road you are traveling there are valuable lessons waiting to be uncovered – lessons that will help you grow your new church plant right now and that will serve you well for the rest of your ministry.

Don’t miss what God wants to teach you along the way!

P.S. The Church Planting Conference in Orlando is NEXT FRIDAY! If you get in touch with me today, I might be able to open up a few more spots.

This conference is perfect if you are just beginning to plan a Church Launch as well as for those who have already started their services. Let me help you with growing your church plant, but you need to register today to be at the upcoming One Day Launch Conference in Orlando on July 13th.  Register today, I am not sure how many more I can fit in the conference room!

SIGN UP FOR THE UPCOMING LAUNCH CONFERENCE TODAY!

by Nelson Searcy and Tommy Duke

We’re looking at the lessons that can be learned in “Bootstrapping” a Church Plant (starting with little or no outside financial support).  Click here to read the first,  second, and third posts in this series.

Here are today’s lessons:

4. FOCUS: YOU’LL STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR CHURCH’S VISION
Bootstrapping will force you to drill down on the two or three things you feel called to do in order to fulfill your God-inspired vision. You won’t have time or money for rabbit chasing. For example, at The Journey we’ve chosen to focus on the weekend worship services and small groups. Anything that doesn’t support or flow through those two activities is a distraction from God’s vision for our church. We can attest that not having that pesky funding floating around will keep you from heading off in too many different directions.

3. BE BOLD: YOU’LL LEARN TO TEACH WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT GIVING
God isn’t shocked by the fact that your church needs resources to fulfill its purpose. He set the church up to be supported in a specific way, and he lays out the plan for that support in his word. During this bootstrapping process, take time to dig in and confirm your understanding of what the Bible says about money, on both a personal and corporate level.

One of the primary reasons pastors don’t teach on finances is that they’re not sure what they really believe. But once you have settled your theology of money (and are modeling the way of biblical generosity), you’ll have the confidence to teach your people about giving boldly, passionately and in a way that resources the church as God intends (Mal 3:10). Stewardship is discipleship. If you shy away from teaching on money, you are doing both your people and your new church a disservice. (For more on this topic, read Maximize: How To Develop Extravagant Givers In Your Church.)

Tune in tomorrow for the final two lessons from bootstrapping a new church!

P.S. The Church Planting Conference in Orlando is only ONE WEEK AWAY! There are just a few spots left.

If you’re looking for some help in starting a new church or with growing your church plant, you need to register today. There is still time to attend this crucial event in the life of your church plant but you need to contact me TODAY to be at the upcoming One Day Launch Conference in Orlando on July 13th.  Register today, This will fill up!

SIGN UP FOR THE UPCOMING LAUNCH CONFERENCE TODAY!

by Nelson Searcy and Tommy Duke

We’re about halfway through our series of posts about “Bootstrapping” a Church Plant (starting with little or no outside financial support) and 10 of the lessons learned in doing so.  Click here to read the first post and the second one.

Here are the next two lessons:

6. MOBILIZE: YOU’LL RAISE THE VALUE OF PERSONAL EVANGELISM
If you want to reach more people for Jesus (and if not, don’t plant a church), you have to tell them about him, right? While the well-funded church plant may be tempted to lean too heavily on paid promotion (direct mail, billboards, radio and TV ads, etc.), the bootstrapping church planter knows that his best asset to connect with more people is the people who are already attending his church. I would recommend you read  Ignite: How To Spark Immediate Growth In Your Church on the formula for fostering effective personal evangelism.

5. LEAD: YOU’LL AFFIRM YOUR ABILITY TO LEAD YOUR CHURCH
If you’re not clear about mutual expectations on the front-end, financial support often comes with strings attached. A few months in to your new church, you may find yourself getting more and more heavy-handed “suggestions” about how you should lead, what you should be preaching, what your worship style should be and even how the congregation should be dressing (yes, some people still make a big deal about this).

As a bootstrapper, you won’t have to deal with the noise of too many opinions, which means you’ll be able to listen more closely to God’s unique vision for your new church… and then lead in that direction.

Check back throughout the week, as we’ll be wrapping up the countdown!

P.S. The Church Planting Conference in Orlando is NEXT WEEK! There are only 23 spots left.

If you’re looking for some help in starting a new church or with growing your church plant, you need to register today. There is still time to get the reduced rate on the hotel but you need to contact me TODAY to be at the upcoming One Day Launch Conference in Orlando on July 13th.  Register today before this fills up!

SIGN UP FOR THE UPCOMING LAUNCH CONFERENCE TODAY!

by Nelson Searcy and Tommy Duke

We began a looking at a series of posts yesterday about “Bootstrapping” a Church Plant, and the lessons learned in doing so. (CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY’S POST)

Here are the next two lessons:

8. EXCEL: YOU’LL BE FORCED TO STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE, BUT NOT PERFECTION
If the bank account was overflowing and the monthly support checks were rolling in, you might be tempted to spend three times as much on a projector or sound system for a negligible increase in quality.

After all, you want your service to be perfect, right? Wrong.

As a bootstrapping church planter, you’re going to learn that getting everything perfect for Sunday is not your goal. (Even the attempt will drive you insane.) You’ll learn instead to strive for excellence by always doing the very best you can with what you have.

For example, if by chance Chris Tomlin isn’t available to lead your worship this week, don’t fret. Help your worship leader do his best; help him develop his abilities as he strives to become more like Christ. In every area, always be on the lookout for areas of improvement, but don’t let perfectionism sidetrack God’s calling for you and your church.

7. SYSTEMATIZE: YOU’LL DEVELOP EFFICIENT SYSTEMS
Sadly, some of the sloppiest church systems exist in some of the best funded church plants.

Why? Because no amount of money can make a system that is inherently bad any better. Money may mask the effects of a bad system for a while. After all, if you’ve got the funds available to hire a staff member to handle a broken assimilation or small groups system, those areas may appear healthy in the short term. But without a well-developed, scalable system in place, the cracks will begin showing soon enough.

Thankfully, as a bootstrapper, you’ll be forced to hone in on making your systems highly efficient so you can maximize every ounce of ministry effort.

To Be Continued (check back tomorrow) . . .

P.S. If you’re looking for some help in starting a new church or with growing your church plant, I’d like to invite you to join me at the upcoming One Day Launch Conference in Orlando on July 13th.  Register soon as space is limited.

SIGN UP FOR THE UPCOMING LAUNCH CONFERENCE TODAY!

by Nelson Searcy and Tommy Duke

As we gear up for our Launch Conference, I wanted to share a set of blogs we did for Church Planters dealing with the reality of finances in a new Launch.

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Money makes the world go ‘round.” While those of us in ministry understand the skewed nature of this adage, one thing is for sure: Money is critical to the work we do – especially when that work involves launching a new church.

Every idealistic, would-be church planter must come face to face early on with the reality that starting a church takes a lot of financial resources. In fact, if you are preparing to launch a new church and have been trying to ignore the importance of money to its success, I suggest you do one of two things:

1) Get over your hang-ups and start asking.
If God has called you to start a church, then he has people out there ready and waiting to support it… but you have to ask!

or

2) Find a safe, comfortable job on an existing church’s staff.
At least there you know you’ll have a guaranteed paycheck.

If you’d prefer to go with Option 1, keep reading….

Starting your church plant with healthy financial support is a tremendous indicator of how successful your new church will ultimately be. Make sure you get as much information as possible on how to raise the resources you need to fulfill the God-given vision you have for your church. (Click here for over $149.00 in FREE Church Planting Resources.)

That said, there are times in launching a new church when money is nowhere to be found. Whether this dearth of funding is due to the lack of a strong network, poor asking skills, or to just not knowing any better, the fact is that many (if not most) new churches launch painfully underfunded.

If you find yourself in this position – i.e. if you have already launched without adequate resources – don’t get discouraged. You can still raise support. In fact, there are some potential partners out there who will equate the fact that you are already meeting with more reason that your church is a “viable investment” of their missions budget. So, don’t give up. Keep asking.

But here’s the best news for those of you in the midst of the “rolling but under-resourced” struggle: Valuable lessons can be learned as you go through the tough process of post-launch fundraising.

In the business world, starting with little to no outside assistance is known as “bootstrapping,” so borrowing from this bit of lingo, here are:

The Top 10 Lessons Learned from Bootstrapping a Church Plant:

10. HAVE FAITH: YOU’LL LEARN TO BE THANKFUL FOR GOD’S PROVISION
Where God guides, he provides. Nothing is a better reminder of this truth than looking at your bank statement at the end of the month and wondering how everything got paid. Fair warning: when bootstrapping your church plant there will be dark days, financially speaking and otherwise. But God’s light shines brightest in the darkest situations. You’ll learn to recognize and give thanks for all those times when God shows up in just the nick of time.

9. PRIORITIZE: YOU’LL LEARN WHERE YOU SHOULD AND SHOULDN’T CUT CORNERS
When your young church’s cash flow is more like a drip and the outlook seems bleak, you may be tempted to shut down as much as possible and wait for brighter days. But if your church is to survive long enough to thrive, zeroing out critical areas is never the right solution.

Evangelism is one area where you should never cut corners, for the sake of your church’s long-term health. Skimping on your missions giving (yes, even in a brand new church) will not make you a better steward either. Save money on office supplies? Sure. Negotiate a better rental rate for your meeting place? Definitely. Carve money away from activities that directly relate to fulfilling the Great Commission? Don’t do it!

To Be Continued (check back tomorrow) . . .

P.S. If you’re looking for some help in starting a new church or with growing your church plant, I’d like to invite you to join me at the upcoming One Day Launch Conference in Orlando on July 13th.  Register soon as space is limited.

SIGN UP FOR THE UPCOMING LAUNCH CONFERENCE TODAY!

Guest blogger Steve Stroope here, in my book Tribal Church I talk about what I look for in a church planter. For the last 3 days we have looked at the first 3 characteristics of a church planter:

1. The Church Planter should be a strong leader.

2. The Church Planter needs to have strong teaching skills.

3. The Church Planter should have some prior vocational experience and success in that field of endeavor.

And today we’ll wrap up this series of posts by looking at our final characteristic:

This is the most important of the four characteristics…

A Church Planter needs to be a Person of High Character.

There is obviously no simple evaluation tool to measure this attribute, but without it you’re asking for trouble.

That’s one reason why it is vitally important to know the candidate extremely well or know someone who does.

The investment we make is too large to leave this issue to chance or to try and determine character with only a couple of interviews.

Take time before making a decision to look into past history, check references and talk to people that can give you insight in the candidate’s character.

Oh, and you’d be amazed by what you can learn about someone by a careful read of their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Evaluate what kinds of posts they share and the activities they like to participate in.

Of all the essential characteristics we’ve looked at this week, Character is by far the hardest to determine.

That said, no other quality has so much riding on it, so it’s worth whatever time and energy it takes to do your homework.

I hope this brief blog series has been helpful. If you have not yet read my book Tribal Church, I would encourage you to pick it up today and see how God might speak to you as you read it.

Steve

Editor’s note: Don’t forget – Nelson is hosting a FREE Church Planting Webinar on “The Top 3 Church Planting Mistakes” next week.  If you are a church planter, this is one online event that you will want to attend. It is free for church planters.

Sign up online at Church Leader Insights by CLICKING HERE

Guest blogger Steve Stroope here once again.  In my book Tribal Church I talk about what I look for in a church planter and I’ve been sharing some of these defining characteristics here on Nelson’s blog this week.

We have already evaluated the first two characteristics: The Church Planter must be a strong leader and have strong teaching skills.

Today we continue with the third characteristic:

The Church Planter should have some Prior Vocational Experience and Success in that field of endeavor.

Prior work success tells you a lot about the work ethic of the candidate and, depending on the nature of their previous job, gives tremendous insight into what they do well.

In all my years of life and ministry I’ve come to realize that people are not necessarily good at what they claim. If you don’t believe me, just watch some of the early season episodes of American Idol!

Instead, almost 100% of the time, people are good at what they have proven to do well.

A planter’s previous vocational experience doesn’t have to be in church-related work, although that is easier to evaluate.

In a perfect world, the planter would have prior experience in a successful existing church (or church plant) as a pastor or staff member.

Whatever their prior field or vocation, make sure that they’ve done it well!

By honestly evaluating yourself or any potential church planter through this lens will greatly benefit the Kingdom by setting up this new church plant for success.

Steve

Editor’s Note: If you are considering church planting or are involved in church planting, I would highly recommend you register for Nelson’s upcoming One Day Church Planting Launch Conference in Orlando. It’s taking place at Walt Disney World on Friday, July 13, and this event is the perfect venue for church planter, pastors and their teams.

For more details, visit: The One Day Launch Conference For Pastors, Church Planters and Teams
Hurry – space is limited to the first 99 registrants!

Guest blogger Steve Stroope here again.  In my book Tribal Church I talk about what I look for in a church planter. Yesterday we looked at the first characteristic: The Church Planter must be a Strong Leader.

And today, I want to continue with the second vital characteristic that we’d identified in successful church planters.:

The Church Planter needs to have Strong Teaching Skills.

I’m constantly amazed when I hear about church planting networks choosing to invest Kingdom dollars to support a planter without ever hearing them teach!

It seems like for some reason, these networks are hesitant to use this as a criteria for planting effectiveness.

Whether we like it or not, the people we’re trying to reach will use teaching skills as criteria in deciding whether or not to attend, plug in and grow spiritually as a part of this new church.

So the ability to teach well is a non-negotiable for a church planter

And thankfully for us, teaching skills are among the easiest to verify in the process.

In fact, a simple call or email to request past teaching audio or video recordings and a few minutes to review them is all it takes.

And you can quickly validate if a potential candidate has this second necessary characteristic.

Remember, as you look for the right church planter or as you evaluate yourself in preparation for becoming a church planter, that you must be wise and use all the tools at your disposal to be a good steward of God’s resources.

Steve

—-

Editors Note: Are you planting a church?  Or do you know someone who is?

Don’t miss Nelson’s “Top 3 Church Planting Mistakes” Webinar coming up next week. The time you invest into this FREE Webinar has the potential to save you countless hours of headaches and heartbreaks.

You can sign up today by CLICKING HERE

This week I’ve asked author and my mentor, Steve Stroope, to share some thoughts from his new book, Tribal Church, about what he looks for in a church planter (and why).

Steve pastors the 10,000+ member Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, TX, and they’ve supported dozens of new church plants over the years (including The Journey).  He’s been an invaluable resource to me in starting and leading The Journey. I’m sure it won’t take you long to see why…

Thanks Nelson – let’s jump right in.  Here’s the first characteristic I look for in a church planter:

The Church Planter should be a Strong Leader.

One look at a group of successful church planters will demonstrate quickly that there’s tremendous diversity in the men that God chooses to use – different talents, skills and backgrounds.

But there is one constant: each is a strong leader.

Everything it takes to start a church requires leadership – building a launch team, raising funds, teaching, casting vision… everything!

So how can you tell if someone has the required skills?  Well, we use the D.I.S.C. personality profile to get some insight into how a potential planter is wired.

This time-tested tool helps understand why people do what they do by ranking each person in the categories of Dominance, Influencing, Steadiness and Conscientiousness.

With very few exceptions, we have learned over the years that a strong D.I. profile is the best fit for a planter, with the second best being a similar I.D. profile.

The D.I.S.C. profile is a personality test, and to help further assess potential planters, we also use the Strengths Finder 2.0 test (from Tom Rath’s book by the same name), which measures a person’s natural strengths.

Of the thirty-four possible strengths in that test, we’ve found that a successful planter needs to have at least two of what I would call “hard strengths.”

Hard strengths would be one of the following: Maximizer, Strategic, Competition, Arranger, Command, Activator, Responsibility, Woo and Achiever.

Now, there’s no 100% effective process for identifying and assessing those who are interested in planting a new church, but I’ve found that these two tools (the D.I.S.C. and Strengths Finder) can save you from planting – or encouraging someone else to plant – when they’re not as well equipped to do so.

I hope that helps!

Join me here again tomorrow to continue sharing each of the remaining three characteristics that I look for in a Church Planter.

Steve

—

Thanks Steve!

Be sure and check this blog for the next 3 days as we continue this exciting look at “What to Look for in a Church Planter”

Nelson

P.S. – In conjunction with these posts from Steve, I am leading a FREE Webinar on the “Top 3 Church Planting Mistakes” next week. There’s no charge to participate, but it will fill-up – so an RSVP is required.

Secure your Spot Today by CLICKING HERE

We are very close to the One Day Launch Conference  in Orlando. I want to take some time today to talk about the Launch Large concept in preparation for this Live Event. Have your registered and ordered your plane tickets?

Here is my goal for this conference: I want to help you start a chruch from scratch that will reach as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, my goal is to provide you will everything you need to Launch Large. 

Launching Large is the ability of a new church to reach as many people as possible within the first six to eight months of existence. It’s all about discovering and fulfilling potential.

Large is a relative term and launching large will look different for different church planters in different environments. Don’t get too caught up in the numbers. Instead, focus on the potential of your area as you allow the concept to sink in.

At the same time, don’t completely dismiss the numbers. Numbers are important in that they represent the people you have won to Christ as well as your impact on the community as a whole.

Numbers do serve a purpose – not as a means to secure bragging rights, but as a tool for measuring the expansion of God’s kingdom.

Ask yourself, What would launching large look like in my area?

I hope to continue this dialog with you at my One Day Launch Conference  in Orlando on April 13th. 

Space is very limited so don’t delay signing up today.

Here are the details:

The One Day Launch Conference For Pastors, Church Planters and Teams
Location: Royal Plaza Hotel Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL
Date: Friday, April 13, 2012
Time: 9:30am – 4:30pm

Hurry – space is now extremely limited!

PS - Special hotel rates are available for conference attendees (information will be emailed upon registration).