General Best Practices

• Bring in an outside coach or consultant to visit once a month (3)
• Let the community form before programs, you want the church to be a warm and hospitable place (3)
• Host a potluck once a month to build community (3)
• Connect with other churches in the area (3)
• Create commitments (i.e. commit to attendance, commit to prayer, financial giving, etc) for your members (3)
• Rally the congregation, so that the church can run on its own if pastor leaves (4)
• Ensure that there are financial adept people on your leadership team (4)
• Rector needs to be careful about wearing too many hats (6)
• Rector needs to have a coherent discipleship plan and be in tune to leadership development (6)
• Match planting model to personality of pastor (6)
• Support network from diocese, later network and other pastors was very important (6)
• Family must be on board! (7)
• Know your gifts as a pastor and hire people who compliment you (7)
• Had a lot of support from incubating pastor and staff from his church for development and spiritual health (7)
• Part of a pastor’s covenant group that meets once a month (8)
• Family was very supportive and have other pastors outside of church to lean on (8)
• Don’t take spiritual warfare lightly (8)
• Relational flow from Andy Stanley (Choosing to Cheat) is correct: build church in heart, home, then city (8)
• Now run a church planting residency program (refer to AIM materials in resources) that allows incubation periods for new plants within an existing church; has worked very well (8)
• Family must be on board with call, but will not make tough times nonexistent, be prepared through prayer and fellowship to meet those familial challenges (9)
• Partnerships with local community groups, like Young Life, were very important to growth and perceived legitimacy in community (9)
• Had plans to move to land and direction early on, but Lord had different plans; need to be prayerful and open to the Lord and his desires; do not make it about yourself (9)