Should your church help launch a new congregation?

Trip attended a denominational meeting for deacons where a speaker urged every church to help launch a new congregation.

Every church? Not Calvary, he thought. They were a plateaued congregation that needed a new vision to move forward. That was why they called Brian, a mid-career pastor, to lead the church.

Then he remembered that after seminary, Brian served as pastor of a new congregation. Perhaps he could tell him why any church — especially Calvary — should consider helping launch a new congregation.

Trip told Brian by text message he wanted to talk about this. Brian thought and prayed about it. He felt it might be what Calvary needed.

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As chairperson of the deacons at Calvary, Trip felt he should be prepared for the next deacons gathering as five other deacons had attended the training and had questions about launching a new congregation.

“Frankly, Brian, at first I thought it was a crazy idea,” Trip shared when they met. “But I talked with my wife about it, and she thought we should not dismiss it without prayerful consideration. What do you think?”

Brian said his initial response was negative as well.

“Then I began to pray, which led me to ponder the idea,” he continued. “It led me to consider the impact on the sponsoring churches of launching the congregation where I was pastor after seminary.

“I wrote a list of ways I remembered these churches were impacted and improved their own ministry while helping us launch. We are in an era when church planters launch congregations. When I came along, churches launched congregations.”

Here’s what Brian means:

First, three sponsoring churches helped launch the congregation Brian led as a church planter. One was the lead church that had launched before. The other two were supporting churches learning the launch process. This was the common model.

Second, each congregation made a financial commitment to the first three years of the new congregation. The lead congregation committed the most, exceeding what their denomination would contribute during the launch years.

Third, the sponsoring congregations had pastors, staff and laypeople with a variety of spiritual gifts and life skills who would contribute to the effort. For example, the three pastors had diverse gifts and skills, and each one poured into Brian’s life as the church planter.

Fourth, staff and laypersons from the sponsoring congregations provided various resources needed to launch the congregation. From the three congregations, more than two dozen families committed to be part of the core team launching the congregation and to stay with the new congregation for one to three years.

Many who committed to stay for more than one year never left.

Prayer strategy

Fifth, each congregation had a prayer strategy to provide spiritual support for the new congregation. This was the most amazing thing. Numerous laypersons were spiritually convicted by the power of prayer and came forward with finances, equipment, materials and volunteer skills that their own congregation did not know they had.

Sixth, the congregations discovered that by helping a new congregation launch, they also boosted the vitality and vibrancy of their own congregation. The supporting congregations weren’t reaching their full Kingdom potential, and some amazing things happened once their people were praying and focusing on missional engagement.

Seventh, one of the congregations became the lead congregation for another new congregation that launched a few years later.

Next: See what happened when they talked with the deacons about the possibility of helping launch a new congregation.