A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a church planting leader.
He asked my opinion on the best way to develop a church planter. I suggested that he first take a look at the essential skills a planter needs to plant a church. Then I asked him what that training process would look like. His response did not surprise me…
- Just-in-time training is the best way to equip a church planter because the learning loop is short.
- The ideal context he told me, would be the church where the planter is already engaged.
- And finally, although some classroom instruction would be helpful, having a coach was paramount.
I affirmed his insights and then asked him if he would be interested in seeing a pathway to apprentice a church planter, highlighting best practices others have gleaned from their experience. His eyes lit up, suggesting that he would be very interested. That’s when I told him about the Church Planter Pathway Storyboard.
The beauty of the Church Planter Pathway Storyboard is that a coach can use this to apprentice a prospective planter using a one page format (called the One Page Coach) but is not bound to a particular model. Four developmental phases illustrate the ongoing process a church planter must visit and revisit, again and again, until a high degree of confidence has been demonstrated in the various skills needed. Because this is a competency-based process the planter-in-training does not “graduate” until competency has been achieved vs. completing a course or working through a set curriculum.
See if the Church Planter Pathway Storyboard touches on the most critical areas of developing a church planter based on your experience.
