By Phil Claycomb
Being neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, I am wary of predicting the future. But I do feel adequate to comment on emerging trends. These observations are not futuristic guesses. Nor do they reflect my thoughts alone. I solicited input from church-planting colleagues. I asked them to identify up-and-coming trends they see. The surprise was that we all see the same developments. I did not expect that. So here are the trends that are emerging within the church-planting efforts of the Independent Christian Churches.
Regional Networks: From Lethargy to Vitality
I left seminary wanting to plant a church. As such, I explored options with several “church-planting organizations.” To my dismay, I discovered that many were neither: they were neither “starting churches” nor were they “organized.” While most groups talked a lot about church planting, they only rarely launched a church. In the end, it was mostly just a lot of talk. Nobody seemed to be getting it done.
I don’t think I am being unfair to suggest that, at one point, many of our regional networks were lethargic. But that has changed. Praise the Lord! Our regional networks are back in the game. Churches are being started. And because they are being launched by regional networks, they are being started all over the country, in all kinds of places. My own ministry, Nexus: Church Planting & Leader Care, has partnered with 16 regional networks across 23 states. (See www.nexus.us.) The networks that were once lethargic and slow are now active, limber, creative, and engaged!
And as these regional networks show signs of vitality, young leaders are assuming leadership roles within the networks. Older leaders who faithfully revived the lethargic ministries are handing their ministries off to young, energetic successors. And even better, I know of 11 church-planting leaders who are aspiring to start new networks in their own regions.
New vision is emerging. New ways of doing church are being embraced. The once lackluster networks are on the cutting edge of innovation and creativity. There is a new sense of vitality among our regional church-planting networks.
If you’re not already supporting your regional network, check it out—I strongly suspect it’s worth your support! These can be found at www.newchurchnet.com.
Strategies: From SOPs to IEPs
Not so long ago, almost all our new church plants followed the same “standard operating procedures” (SOPs). Everyone targeted the same type of community (fast-growing suburbs). We hired similarly equipped leaders (typically high D-dominant or I-inspirational types, as indicated via the DiSC temperament scale). Given that almost all projects were in the same suburban context, the projects all required roughly the same level of funding. And the projects were coached to run basically the same game plan, regardless of location. It looked and felt like we were launching franchise locations.
Every new church was a lot like all the other new churches, regardless of location, context, or the individual call of the founding pastor. And it was hard to argue with our success. We got good at planting the same kind of churches all over the continent. Our SOPs worked well for a long time.
But that’s no longer our norm. A new willingness to experiment and innovate has emerged. Why? I’d like to say that we’ve been innovating voluntarily and intentionally. But my gut tells me it has more to do with the fact that the old SOPs no longer produce the same successes we once saw. We needed new game plans and we have found them.
New methods and ideas abound in our networks. New churches are now being started everywhere, not just in suburban sprawl. My ministry, Nexus: Church Planting and Leader Care, and our partners, are launching churches in urban, rural, small-town, and yes—suburban settings. And the unique dynamics in differing communities and the individual call and vision of the leaders force us to tailor our strategies. Our projects require the equivalent of what educators call an Individualized Education Program (or IEP).
We need IEPs because we are starting different kinds of churches in different types of communities, often using a different kind of leader. We are targeting different ethnicities and people groups. We are experimenting with new ways of being the church. Our typical strategies have focused on launching Sunday-centric programs. As the name implies, those churches are mostly about what can be built on and out of a Sunday morning program. But a new approach to church life is emerging.
Some leaders opt to launch group-centric models that focus attention on more than a Sunday morning program. These new churches invest heavily in smaller expressions of church life. These emerging trends are forcing church-planting networks to shift from the predictable uniformity of previous SOPs to the serendipitous customization of an IEP.
The results are not nearly as predictable as in the past. These new approaches are messy. But new people are being reached by smaller, simpler expressions of worship, community, and mission. This is an exciting time to be engaged in starting new churches.
Partnership: From Competition to Collaboration
To be fair, I have rarely witnessed outright competitiveness between church-planting networks and their leaders. We generally get along well. We learn from one another. We help each other. We like one another. But even so, the behind-the-scenes reality is that we often find ourselves chasing the same supporters, or worse—the same church-planting candidates. In those moments we engage in friendly competition for the same resources. I wish I could see that changing. But I don’t.
However, the good news is that a newfound spirit of collaboration and partnership has emerged between our regional ministries. And this spirit of collaboration is much stronger than any incidental competitiveness that might occasionally pop up.
Networks are partnering to start churches regardless of the project’s location. State lines used to prevent neighboring state networks from cooperating. Not anymore. Networks ignore state lines and assist one another because it seems to be the right thing to do. I would be hard put to identify a recent church plant that was not started in collaboration between multiple networks and sister churches.
The NewChurch Network (see newchurch.network) is a tangible expression of this newfound spirit of collaboration. Twenty or more regional networks have linked arms in this collaborative network. We like to say, “We engage in mutual projects that may not apparently advance narrow regional agendas because we’re following One who has an agenda far bigger than any of our regional agendas.” I think Christ, and the original founders of our movement, would be pleased by these displays of missional unity.
Training: From Seminary-Trained to “Just-in-Time” Training
Anyone who has been tracking the health of our colleges and seminaries has reason to wonder where we will find church planters and church staff in the coming years. Every network leader I know has noticed that the pool of potential seminary-trained candidates is drying up. They’re just not out there. Fortunately, the Lord appears to have already provided a solution. A new wave of leaders is emerging from within the churches themselves. They are often stepping into leadership with little or no seminary training. And they are entering ministry as bivocational leaders. They have separate jobs and careers in addition to their ministry.
Seventeen of our most recent 25 Nexus church planters are bivocational. Many never intend to quit their “day jobs.” They prefer to lead their churches from a “I have a day job too!” posture. Several of our leaders have had no seminary training. Our challenge is to provide them with the right training at the right time. They need “just-in-time” training. I anticipate this will be the new norm going forward. We are advising current church planters to assume that the pastor who follows them may need to be raised up and developed from within their new church itself.
Those familiar with our tribal history might note that this is not so much a new trend as a freshly emerging old trend. This used to be the way it was within the Restoration Movement. This new trend might prove to be better than our recent approaches to training and preparing leaders.
Mission: From Disciple-Making as a Method to the Mission!
I’m excited to report that disciple-making is being rediscovered and rethought. For far too long disciple-making was viewed as a means to the real mission of the church: church growth. Nearly anything that produced growth was valued and emphasized in church-planting circles. On a personal level, I fell into this wrongheaded approach to mission. My earliest rationale for promoting small groups and disciple-making was based on the realization that I would lose Sunday morning attendees if my church did not provide people with closer relational connections. So, I sold small groups and talked about disciple-making. But I did not view disciple-making as the core mission of Christ’s church. And I’m not the only one who has thought this way. I’ve coached a couple of hundred church planters over the years. And I believe most leaders viewed disciple-making as I did . . . a means to their own end: growth. We did not see it as the mission of the church. Thankfully, this is changing. Networks are investing energy and capital to prepare church planters for their core task: multiplying disciple-making leaders.
My own network, Nexus, has hosted more than 40 churches through The Bonhoeffer Project. (See nexus.us/bonhoeffer.) This 10-month cohort learning experience guides participants through the process of rediscovering Jesus’ discipleship gospel and methodology. The participants design and implement their own disciple-making strategy in their local church. Instead of seeing disciple-making as a method toward church growth, our new churches are discovering that disciple-making is the core of our mission.
All in all, the Independent Christian Churches have much to be excited about as we look to our future in church planting. A new spirit of collaboration has broken out between our regional networks. Partnership and cooperation are the new norm. New leaders are emerging from unexpected sources. New ways of providing leadership training are being introduced. New ways of being the church are being experimentally launched. Sleepy and lethargic regional networks are waking up, shaking the dust off, and jumping into the fray. Our regional networks are handing the leadership reins to a new generation of eager leaders. And our churches are remembering their core mission is to make disciples who make disciples.
As I survey these emerging trends, I find myself wishing I was just now starting out in ministry. The present and near future look exciting and stimulating! But I can’t complain . . . my ministry run from the late 1980s until now has been a wild ride! What’s coming next looks to be much of the same!
Dr. Philip Claycomb serves as executive director of Nexus: Church Planting and Leader Care, McKinney, Texas.
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