State of Church Planting in the U.S. Today A Leadership Network Research Project

Trends in Church Multiplication

Transition to “local” It is clear that the energy of successful church planting is moving quickly from denominational structures to the more hands-on local churches and networks.

Evangelistic Effectiveness This generation of church planting leaders is committed to increasing not only the survivability and multiplication of church plants but also the evangelistic effectiveness of those plants.

Church Planting Systems  assessment, basic training, coaching Plants using these systems are more likely to reach unchurched and grow more quickly than plants who do not.

Resources  Church plants that grow larger, more quickly, tend to be more heavily resourced and staffed than those that do not.

Funding  Church planting emphasis is shifting from the initiative and oversight of a national or regional agency to that of a local church.

The shift There is a trend where funding rests on the shoulders of the parent church and the church planter with the national agencies providing no more then 33 percent (or less) of funding needs.

National support  There appears to be a trended correlation between the amount of money the national agency contributes to each church plant and the number of parent churches in that denomination.

 More money from the national agency correlates with a lower percentage of churches that become parent churches.

Observations  Local churches traditionally place a value on planting churches similar to themselves—and tend to do so through direct “mothering” or sponsorship.

Budgeting and Funding  Churches that aggressively pursue church planting have a number of financial factors in common.

Church planting churches…  Expect new planters to raise a sizeable amount of the church planting budget (50 percent – 80 percent)

Aggressive, reproducing churches  Provide less financial support than do less-aggressive churches.

 The more money a parent church puts into a single church plant, the fewer number of churches they actually planted.

More-aggressive parent churches  Assigned 10 percent or more of the church’s overall budget to domestic church planting

Staffing and partnerships  One-third of larger churches had paid staff assigned to church planting.

Church planting staff  Most of these staff spent less than 50 percent of their time focused on church planting.

 There is however a positive correlation between the number of staff who assist with church planting and the number of churches planted by that church.

 There is a direct correlation between the senior pastor’s commitment to church planting and the church’s ability to plant successfully.

 The more staff involved in church planting, the trend is for the church to become more involved with other partners and providers.

 The more rapidly a church grows, the more likely they seem to initiate or become involved with a para-church church-planting network.

 Churches that were 200 or less in attendance were four times more likely to plant a church than churches of 1000 or more in attendance.  Churches between 200–500 in attendance were twice as likely to plant a church than their larger counterparts.

 The more partners and service providers a parent church worked with the more churches they planted.

 A “reproducing, multi-staff, high-impact style” church plant seems to be more popular with larger churches, and parallels the number of partners and providers with whom they associate.

Recruitment, Assessment, & Training  Churches that reported aggressive church planting results viewed assessment, training, encouragement, coaching, and mentoring as more important and strategic than financial support.

 Church-planting churches self-perceived role is to prepare the planter for the work in the field and to press him to self-sufficiency. There is a lot of freedom given to church planters to determine methodologies and form.

Vision and Value  A shared trait is the importance of articulating the vision and value of church planting to the church body through multiple levels of mass communication.

 Success is conveyed in terms of personal involvement by its membership through prayer, financial giving and being sent out as a part of the planting core group.

 The value of church planting is expressed as the most effective means of evangelism that a church can participate in for the expansion of God’s Kingdom and the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

 The lead pastors encourage staff participation through lending their expertise in their particular ministry area to the church-planting efforts.

Analysis  Church-planting churches consistently reported a goal to create self-sufficient church planters and churches.

 Most of them do not fund heavily. Rather, they place the planter into a great amount of training.

What is a Church Planting Church?   Do your church's founding documents or published vision, mission, values and strategy documents identify church planting as a key component of your church's vision?

DNA + 2 of the following:   Does your church regularly send members out to help with church plants?   Does your church give 5% or more of your annual budget to support direct church planting?   Does your church have a Church Planting Director or Coordinator on staff? (full or part- time)   Do you have a church planter internship or residency program?

How are people getting other churches involved in church planting?

Assemblies of God (AG)

Evangelical Free Church   Reproducing Clinic 101   An Introduction To Church Multiplication

Evangelical Free Church Six Critical Questions: Why start new churches? How do we prepare to parent? How do we get our church to plant? How do we design our basic strategy? How do we select right planter & place? How do we establish a healthy parenting process?

NAMB

Books on Multiplication:   The Multiplying Church: The New Math for Starting New Churches (Bob Roberts)   Be Fruitful and Multiply (Bob Logan)   Churches That Multiply: A Bible Study on Church Planting (Elmer Towns and Douglas Porter)   The Ripple Church (Phil Stevenson)   The Dynamic Daughter Church Planting Handbook (Paul Becker and Mark Williams)