Mentored Training Cohorts
We propose that the above objectives are best accomplished through pairing a cohort of church planters with a mentor leader.
- These church planters can listen to one another as they grow together, sharing best practices and encouraging one another as they blaze a church planting trail together.
- Mentors will provide the framework of tested processes that help these emerging leaders to ask the right questions at the right time, while coaching through prayer and wise counsel.
Leaders who have been called by God to initiate church plants already have all that they need to accomplish their God-given work. The training and guidance they receive should be focused less on giving them what they do not have, and more on guiding them to steward the resources they already have, and to discern the next steps for the ministries they lead.
We imagine that the SELC district may partner with existing ministries to support regionally-focused mentors (hub directors) who are responsible for recruiting new leaders, and walking with them as church plants are developed.
These planters will be identified from among existing SELC congregations, as well as through our seminaries and universities. Many of the church planters will not be full-time clergy, but will build ministries alongside their marketplace occupation. As the new ministries grow, staffing models will be developed to discern the best occupational path for the worker.
Benchmarked Funding Models
Decades ago, funding models relied on large early-stage investment to fund full-time staff as well as brick-and-mortar facilities. The struggle with these models is that they required the funding agency (in this case the SELC district) to commit God-given resources to a ministry before the viability of the church plant is readily apparent. We plan to segment funding into stages that incentivize building sustainability prior to the application of large amounts of capital funding.
We propose that, in conjunction with strategic planning templates (below), funding for new mission endeavors be tied to milestones. With this funding model, it would be assumed that not all church plants progress through the full funding schedule. Therefore the District would have the opportunity to pursue more endeavors while reserving resources for a more targeted approach to mission funding.
Benchmarks could include (but may not be limited to)
- Gathering a core launch team for a new endeavor,
- Securing a certain level of local funding to be matched by the district,
- Launching a certain number or quality of grassroots-led mission activities, or undergoing a process of vocational discernment.
While participation and funding may be parts of the benchmarks, the goal of the benchmarks would be to aid in discerning faithfulness more than extrinsic “success”, to enable the emerging leader and the District to discern where God is guiding in order to invest most wisely.
Strategic Planning Templates
While God is able to work in many ways to establish and sustain His Church, our current cultural climate requires innovative mission strategies. By drawing on learnings from church planting leaders around the country, we will define expectations of how new ministries may develop along specific paths.
We propose developing Strategic Planning Templates for the following paths:
- Sacrament-centric Ministries – Prioritizing Word and Sacrament ministry as the primary galvanizing program for a community.
- Social Enterprise Endeavors – Beginning with felt-need ministries to initiate a community that intends to yield a future church plant.
- Marketplace-focused Applications – Starting a business to establish a neighborhood footprint for Kingdom impact.
After careful examination of possible strategies, emerging leaders will discern the path that they feel is best for the work God has given them. This can significantly increase efficiency around planning and goal-setting as new missional endeavors are pursued.
While it is the goal of the District to establish Word and Sacrament communities (churches); we believe that the above categories represent proven paths to that end. Working with experienced leaders and planters, we propose marking out 3- to 5-year plans as templates for emerging leaders. These templates would inform the process by which leaders discern and learn in their cohorts alongside peers and mentors.