Get documents about "Australian churches
Document Sample
The next1000
Australian churches
by Steve Addison
www.next1000.org
Inside
every apple
“Inside every apple is an orchard.”
Donald McGavaran
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 2
Contents
1. Introducing next1000 4 - 17
2. 8 Practices of a Church Planting Movement 18 - 45
1. Leading 19
2. Recruiting 22
3. Selecting 26
4. Coaching 29
5. Equipping 31
6. Farming 36
7. Parenting 39
8. Sustaining 43
3. What’s Next 46 - 50
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 3
The call
Over the years I’ve discovered a growing band of leaders across the nation
who have been on a similar journey. Perhaps you are one of them.
Together we believe it is time to see God fulfill His promise of a nation-wide
church planting movement.
I got my call to fuel
church planting movements
in 1988.
I was sitting alone in my garage. For four months I had risen before dawn
every morning to pray and read the Scriptures.
I’m not a disciplined person. I was just desperate—desperate for God and
tired of my ministry. Michelle and I were in the second year of our first church
planting experience. After twelve months, we had over two hundred people
attending weekly. I wasn’t sure if the devil still existed. Everything was humming.
Then in the second year we had our first church fight and it was awful.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 4
It’s not about planting
one new church.
It’s about a whole new
generation of churches
That’s when the call came. In October, 1988, as clear as could be, God spoke
into my heart and told me that, “It’s not about planting one new church.
It’s about a whole new generation of churches that will reach this nation.”
For the last eighteen years, fuelling church planting movements has been the
enduring passion and preoccupation of my life. As I look back, the one thing
I’ve learned about hearing God’s voice is this: the more clearly He guides, the
tougher the assignment will be.
That’s why I believe we should
trust God for the next 1000
churches across Australia.
To help you understand what that could mean, let me tell you about one
new church.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 5
Andy & Jo
Back in 1999, Andy Bennet was in a leadership network with me while he was
wrestling through his call to plant a church. Andy was ministering one day a
week in Millgrove, a town about 70 kms east of Melbourne. He was seeing
children and their family members come to Christ through his ministry in a
local primary school. He wasn’t sure what to do with them. Many of the new
believers came from broken and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Andy and his wife Jo wanted to see a new church emerge that would support
these folk and help them grow as followers of Christ. The leaders at their
sending church, CareForce (www.careforce.org), encouraged Andy and Jo to
believe it was possible. So they took the plunge and became church planters.
It’s six years down the track now, and it’s been a roller-coaster ride for Andy,
Jo, and their three children. For the first twelve months, they felt that they had
made a mistake. They desperately missed their home back in the suburbs of
Melbourne. People came to the church with their needs, and at times Andy
and Jo were overwhelmed. Jo often cried herself to sleep.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 6
the glory of God is a
human being fully alive.
Irenaeus
One by one, Andy and Jo saw God break through into people’s lives.
Andy was out driving on the Warburton Highway one day when he came on
the scene of a road accident. A young man named Max, under the influence
of drugs, had been walking along the middle of the highway. A van came over
the crest of a hill, and the driver had no time to stop before he ran into him.
Max died in Andy’s arms.
Immediately after the accident, Andy visited Max’s grieving family every day.
They asked him to speak at the funeral. At the end of the funeral, Max’s brother
Peter came up to Andy said, “You’ve given me a faith I never dreamed existed.”
Over the next three years a relationship grew with Peter and with his partner
Janice. Slowly they were drawn into relationships with others in the new church.
But they struggled to overcome their $500 a week drug habit. They were needy
people, and the relationship was often hard work.
Eventually Peter and Janice came to Andy, desperate to overcome their addiction.
The church had helped them connect with various recovery programs, but they
were still hooked. Andy challenged them to hand over their lives AND their
addiction to Christ. Since that moment, they have been following Christ,
and they have been drug free. Andy and Jo can tell story after story of the lives
they have seen transformed by Christ.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 7
Andy & Jo
What did it take to see this growing band of disciples become the body of
Christ in Millgrove? It took a family willing to obey God’s call to a plant a
church. It took a parent church willing to release them and resource them.
It’s taken six years of serving the community, building relationships, and sharing
the gospel. The outcome is a living expression of God’s grace in Millgrove.
Every community in Australia needs multiple expressions of fresh, authentic
churches that make disciples.
We need 1000 more stories
like Andy and Jo’s.
How can we make that happen? What kind of people will help us get there?
Tim Keller on Why we should plant more churches:
www.redeemer2.com/resources/papers/why%20plant%202%2011%20TLeaders.pdf
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 8
People who
don’t know
any better
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
The unreasonable man persists in adapting the world to himself.
Therefore all hope of progress rests with the unreasonable man.”
George Bernard Shaw
This calling is not about the next new church we plant or the one after that.
It’s not about our plans to replace the churches we shut down every year with
new ones. It’s not about sinking money into a handful of “innovative missional
initiatives”. It’s not about carefully planting one or two churches a year.
It is about unleashing a dynamic that we can’t control that results in church
multiplication everywhere. It’s back to the book of Acts where the apostles were
desperately trying to keep up with the chaos of what the Word and the Spirit
were doing.
For almost twenty years I’ve read and listened to stories of people who have
changed the world. These are the characteristics that set them apart:
1. White-hot faith
2. Commitment to a cause
3. Contagious relationships
4. Rapid mobilization
5. Adaptive methods
For more about these five characteristics go to:
www.steveaddison.net/2005/04/02/when-the-church-goes-to-the-dogs.html
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 9
World
changers
In order to plant 1000 new Australian churches, we are going to have to release
these dynamics throughout the body of Christ. Things will need to be different
at every level of church life.
I can think of a lot of good, sensible reasons why we shouldn’t plant new
churches in Australia. We don’t have the money. We don’t have the leaders.
We should concentrate on making existing churches healthier first.
But sensible people don’t change the world. If the challenge to plant 1000
churches is from God, then right around the country there is a growing band
of people who can see in faith what God is about to do. They “get it”. They see
new churches everywhere. Despite the setbacks, they know it can happen.
Eyes fixed on the future, they live their lives backwards. They see the end from
the beginning.
I met a young woman in China who had come to faith three years previously.
Already she was leading a small group of friends she had won to Christ. I asked
her what her plans were.
“To grow the group,” she replied.
“But what happens when the group gets too large?” I asked.
“I’ll start new groups.”
“But how will you have time to run all those new groups?”
“I’ll train others.”
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 10
She didn’t
know any
better
Here is a new believer who doesn’t know any better. She doesn’t know it can’t
be done. Of course you reach your friends! Of course you start new groups!
Of course you train others! Isn’t that normal?
Church planting movements are led by people with this kind of apostolic vision
and passion. They wake up in the morning, and they see churches multiplied
across neighbourhoods, cities, regions, and nations. History is made by the
people who don’t know it can’t be done.
To plant 1000 churches,
we’re going need
1000 pioneering leaders
who don’t know it can’t
be done.
And there are plenty of other positions that need to be filled.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 11
Positions
vacant
We’ll need:
• team members who step out in faith;
• innovators who experiment with new methods and pioneer new forms of
the church;
• senior ministers who cast a vision to their congregations about becoming a
parent church;
• denominational leaders who see beyond maintenance to mission;
• change agents who can clear away the organisational clutter that inhibits
church planting movements;
• donors who give strategically to kick start sustainable models of ministry;
• coaches and trainers who equip church planters and their teams;
• researchers who document the progress and impact of church planting and
identify the unreached and ripe fields;
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 12
Positions
vacant
We’ll need:
• creatives in film, print. and web media who get the message out and tell
the story of our progress;
• event organizers for national and regional gatherings;
• educators who reinvent how theological and ministry training is delivered
to workers in the field;
• prayer warriors who go before us, alongside us, and after us;
• seasoned church planters who stand with the next generation as models
and mentors;
• cross-cultural workers to reach those outside the cultural mainstream;
• movement leaders who see beyond the next church to church multiplication.
These are the kind of people who will be needed to get the job done. Now let
me tell you about the sort of churches that we need to plant.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 13
What
kind of
churches?
Whenever I share the vision for 1000 new churches I get asked, “But what sort
of churches?” To answer I’ll use an analogy from science.
According to Austrian astrophysicist Erich Jantsch, every living thing is both
constantly changing and constantly remaining the same. If an organism
doesn’t do both it will cease to exist. A living organism is ‘a never resting
structure’ that constantly seeks its own self-renewal. He uses the Greek word
autopoiesis to describe this principle of self-organisation.
There are two implications for the church. First, the body of Christ is a living
organism that must retain its essential identity or cease to exist as the church.
Second, the body of Christ is a living organism that must be constantly
changing and renewing itself or it will cease to exist. That’s why we need 1000
“autopoietic” new churches.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 14
Autopoietic
churches
1. Churches that remain
the same
There are some things about the church that we must never change.
John Wimber called them “the main and the plain”—belief in the Trinity,
the Incarnation, Atonement, and the Resurrection, Salvation through faith in
Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit and the authority of the Scriptures,
Christ’s Return, the Final Judgment.
In addition there is the call to follow Christ in costly obedience; the Great
Commandment to love God with all our heart, mind and soul, and to love our
neighbour as ourselves; and there is obedience to the Great Commission to
take the Gospel to the world.
These are non-negotiables. But don’t worry; there are plenty of other issues
we can disagree on!
The Lausanne Covenant expresses both the need to adhere to biblical
orthodoxy and the need to live out our faith in loving obedience:
www.lausanne.org/Brix?pageID=12891
Autopoietic churches are united by their commitment to biblical orthodoxy
and loving obedience to Christ. That’s the first half of the autopoiesis
equation. These churches remain the same in the midst of a world that seeks
to squeeze them into its mould.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 15
Autopoietic
churches
2. Churches that are
constantly changing
The church needs to constantly change primarily because it must live out its
mission in a changing world. The church must also constantly change because
it is forever drifting or even running from the authority of the Word and the
power of the Holy Spirit.
The dynamic of constant change is manifested in the variety and diversity of
ministry models and expressions of Church.
This is why Australia needs more house churches, mega-churches,
contemporary churches, emerging churches, evangelical churches, Pentecostal
churches, charismatic churches, traditional churches, multi-site churches,
campus churches, workplace churches and forms of the church we haven’t even
discovered yet.
We are all called to love the church we’re in, but we must not confuse what we
are called to, with the totality of what God is doing in the body of Christ.
Unity is not uniformity.
It is partnership in mission.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 16
Miracle in
New York
Tim Keller can teach us all
something about what
partnership can look like.
Keller has a vision for 100 new churches in the city of New York. He’s a
hymn-singing, orthodox Presbyterian who is helping Pentecostals, Lutherans,
Southern Baptists, and whoever, to plant ‘gospel-centred’ churches in his city.
For more on Tim Keller go to:
www.steveaddison.net/2006/02/27/miracle-in-new-york.html
Autopoietic churches: they know what unites them and they affirm the diversity
of what God is doing in the whole body of Christ. They affirm their unique
expression of biblical orthodoxy and they work in partnership with the whole
body of Christ to reach the whole nation.
Now, if you feel the challenge of planting the next 1000 churches, I suggest you
read on to discover the eight practices of a church planting movement.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 17
8 Practices
Here are eight practices that every church planting movement has to get right.
There are probably more, but if you get started on these, you’ll soon find out
what the others are.
1. Leading: vision for church planting movements
2. Recruiting: finding the leaders we need now
3. Selecting: choosing the right people
4. Coaching: empowering church planters
5. Equipping: training church planters and their teams
6. Farming: growing the leaders of the future
7. Parenting: healthy churches reproducing
8. Sustaining: funding a church planting movement
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 18
1 Leading
Vision for church planting
movements
There is an old saying: If everyone feeds the horse, the horse will starve. If we
make everybody responsible for something, it won’t happen.
Someone has to take responsibility to provide leadership for a church planting
movement and to gather a team that will implement a vision for a church
planting movement. Without a leader you’re not in the game. No exceptions.
But without a team, that leader is going nowhere. On that team you’ll need
a variety of players—visionaries, experienced church planters, organizers,
networkers, strategic thinkers, coaches, and trainers.
The important thing is that a leader and a team are given the authority and
responsibility to get things done. Who should that leader be? I like King
David’s method of leadership selection in I Chronicles 11:6. Who gets to lead
the army? Whoever (1) is willing to go first and (2) comes back alive.
Ask yourself, who wants this role more than anybody else and has the ability
to lead others in battle? Unfortunately, that kind of leader is not highly valued
once a movement settles down. Somehow you need to make room for them.
Fuelling a church planting movement is going to be messy.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 19
Expect a
mess
Proverbs 14:4 reminds us that if you get rid of your oxen you’ll have a nice clean
barn. But an abundant harvest comes by the strength of the ox.
It’s your choice—a clean barn
or an abundant harvest. You can’t
have both.
If you want to release leadership for a church planting movement, expect a mess
and expect results.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 20
Movement
leaders
Leadership of a church planting movement can take various forms. Here are
some contemporary examples of leaders of church planting movements.
Each has a different leadership model and strategy.
• George Patterson expressed his leadership through coaching church planters
in Honduras.
• Chris Marantika is a theological professor who is multiplying churches
throughout Indonesia.
• Ralph Moore is a senior minister in Hawaii who has seen over 200 churches
planted in the US, Asia and the Pacific.
You can find out more about these pioneering leaders and others at:
www.steveaddison.net/2005/09/09/7-ways-to-reinvent-ministry-training.html
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 21
2 Recruiting
Finding the leaders
you need now
You won’t spark a church planting movement with a feasibility study.
In order to build momentum for church planting, it’s important to start
with some early wins. You need to go out and find your next three or four
church planters and get them started. Their example will inspire the next wave
of church planters and win over those who are sceptical to support
church planting.
How are you going to find the potential church planters who are out there
right now?
Here are five things you can start doing today:
1. Want them
2. Know them
3. Look for them
4. Attract them
5. Ask them
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 22
2 Recruiting
Want them
I talked to a leader once about his vision for church planting. He told me he
would plant churches when God told him to. I hope he doesn’t have the same
approach to loving his wife and kids. If you don’t feel the need for church
planters, you won’t pray for them and God won’t send them.
Know them
What do effective church planters look like? They have a history of starting new
things. They demonstrate faith in God’s ability to bring them through tough
situations. They can lead and build a team. They relate well to all sorts of people.
They shape ministry to meet needs. That’s not all, but you get the idea.
You need to know what you’re looking for.
This link will take you to Charle’s Ridely’s 13 Characteristics of Effective Church
Planters: www.churchplanting4me.org/ridleyfactors.htm
Look for them
I know a wily old denominational leader who regularly dropped in on theological
colleges, looking for future leaders. He picked up some of the best because he
went looking.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 23
2 Recruiting
You’ll find at least one or two good prospective church planters in most
colleges. But you are going to have broaden your search. According to Bob
Logan you’ll also find good church planters among these groups: business
and professional leaders, university students, “parachurch” workers, returned
missionaries, youth leaders, second career people, existing pastors, “failed”
pastors, “trouble-makers”, effective small group leaders, ministry team leaders,
carpenters, fishermen, and tax collectors!
Attract them
If you want to attract the right candidates, you must find ways to cast an
inspiring vision. Telling stories of effective church planters and transformed
lives is one of the best. Speakers, videos, websites, newsletters, and magazines
should tell the stories of what God is doing and always give candidates a means
to get in touch with you. Find ways around leaders who don’t want you to
recruit “their” people. As if they own them!
Finally, you can run workshops on: “Am I a church planter?” or “How to plant
a church.” Make sure you have some seasoned church planters in the room
telling their stories. Make sure you follow up the best prospects. It’s just like
doing evangelism.
See how Tim Keller uses the web and film to cast vision for a church planting
movement: www.redeemer2.com/rcpc/rcpc/index.cfm?fuseaction=resources
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 24
2 Recruiting
Ask them
I have a 13-year-old son who is six foot tall (180cm). He plays club lacrosse and
basketball. Add these activities to his youth group involvement and school,
and he’s a busy guy. I’ve lost count of the number of times the local basketball
clubs have tried to recruit him to represent the region. It’s a big commitment.
They want him, and they keep asking. That’s how you get good players: you ask
and you keep on asking. Does the local church youth group want him that bad?
Do they want him on their team? Do they ask?
Church planting was far from my mind when in October 1986 Stuart Robinson
at Blackburn Baptist (now Crossway) laid down the challenge. I’m not the last
church planter he has successfully recruited. He asks. If you don’t ask, you
won’t receive.
In recruitment you have to Want, Know, Look, Attract, and Ask. You can (and
should) cast a large net if you know there is a selection process to help test
someone’s call. That’s our next topic.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 25
3 Selecting
Choosing the right candidates
There’s only one thing worse than not having enough church planters—that’s
selecting the wrong people as church planters. Ooooh, that hurts.
Rapidly expanding movements throw as much mud as they can against the wall
and see what sticks. A lot does. But there are some downsides to that strategy.
The human and financial costs can be enormous. A day or two spent on a good
church planter assessment is an investment in pain-avoidance for everyone.
Charles Ridley’s 13 Characteristics and a Behavioural Interview have become
the standard: www.churchplanting4me.org/ridleyfactors.htm
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 26
Best practice
According to Josh Hunt of Leadership Network, when you’re looking for an
effective church planter you are getting “warmer” when...
• You work with someone you know
• You reference objective standards such as those developed by Ridley
• You use a behavioral interview approach
• You work with people who pass the “hang-out” test
• You find a prospective church planter through a mix of passion and
divine “accidents”
Make sure you download Josh Hunt’s study of best practice in selecting
church planters: www.leadnet.org/Resources_Downloads.asp
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 27
Five more
things
Five more things to remember
about the selection process:
1. Knowing Ridley’s list is not enough. Have a well-trained assessment team
before messing with people’s lives.
2. Initial assessments may not tell the whole story. I’ve knocked back people
who have continued to learn and grow. They’ve then gone on to be effective
church planters.
3. In the Acts 29 (www.acts29network.org) movement experienced church
planters do the interviewing.
4. Have successful candidates submit a church planting proposal. Have some
experienced planters “terrorize” the plan before it’s approved.
5. Seven questions a good church planting proposal must answer:
www.steveaddison.net/2006/07/19/reading-the-mind-of-a-church-planter.html
Selecting the right candidates is the most important thing you can do to reduce
the number of new starts that crash or simply fade away. You can improve the
odds even more with some good coaching. That’s our next topic.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 28
4 Coaching
Empowering church planters
Plenty of the best church planters have made it without any coaching at all.
But launching a coaching movement within your church planting movement
will have the following results:
• Make good church planters even better.
• Help prevent struggling planters from bombing out.
• Implant coaching into the “genetic code” of your church planting
movement—coaches reproduce coaches
• Create a fishing pool of future coaches from among your experienced
church planters.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 29
Good coaches ask
powerful questions
that enable a leader
to “GROW”
GOAL
What do you want?
REALITY
What is happening?
OPTIONS
What could you do?
WILL
What will you do?
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 30
4 Coaching
Unpack the GROW model
You can download a free copy of The Startup Guide to Coaching Leaders:
www.steveaddison.net/wp-content/Coaching_Leaders_Startup_Guide_Steve_Addison.pdf.
Remember, some of your best future coaches of church planters will come from
seasoned church planters who themselves have been coached.
Peer coaching model
Bob Logan suggests an alternative or supplement to one-on-one coaching:
• Three churches planters are given basic training in how to coach.
• They meet each month for ninety minutes.
• Each one gets thirty minutes, and no more, to share where they are up to
and while the others listen and ask good questions.
• Pray and move on to the next person.
Whatever coaching strategy you implement, make sure it is sustainable and
reproducible. You want your coaching movement to grow with your church
planting movement.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 31
5 Equipping
Training church planters
and their teams
When Michelle and I planted our first church back in the eighties, my training
consisted of four Peter Wagner tapes and four Rick Warren tapes. I listened
to them over and over again. When I got into trouble, and I did, there was a
telephone number to call. That was my training and support system. We’ve come
a long way since then. Church planting is now a science. Unfortunately, more
knowledge doesn’t necessarily mean better church planting. Knowledge is not
enough. We have to help people learn.
This is what I’m learning about helping leaders learn:
1. The best training is “just in time”
2. The best training is in teams
3. The best training is basic
4. The best training is obedience-oriented
5. The best training is reproducible
6. The best training involves practitioners
7. The best training has an organizing paradigm
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 32
5 Equipping
Just in time
Train them when they need to know it. You can orientate academic students to
church planting. Everything else is a waste of time unless they are actually
doing it. People learn best when real life is both the classroom and examiner.
In teams
Education is alienation. Following a conference, a leader returns excited about
a new direction while the team has been left out of the process. If you want to
dramatically improve the learning environment and chances of implementation,
train planters with their teams. Provide relevant input, then give time for
group process and implementation. Things go even better if you train 3-5 teams
together. The learning skyrockets. Once you’ve done it this way, you’ll never
go back.
Basic
Begin with the end in mind. What do church planters and their teams need to
know and do in order to plant a healthy viable church?
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 33
5 Equipping
Obedience-oriented
If they can’t do it, they don’t know it. Make sure all your training is geared
towards loving obedience to Christ and His commands.
Reproducible
Judge the quality of your training by how well the participants are equipped to
train others. Does your teaching on evangelism result in effective evangelism?
Can the participants you’ve trained become trainers of others?
Practitioners
Involve experienced church planters in the training of church planters.
The simple model we follow is to get the church planters to tell their story and
then share the lessons they’ve learned. Sometimes we have the participants
draw out the principles themselves. Then the teams work out how they will
implement their findings.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 34
5 Equipping
Organizing paradigm
We build the training around Natural Church Development’s
(www.ncd-international.org) eight qualities of a healthy church: empowering
leadership, passionate spirituality, loving relationships, felt need evangelism,
holistic small groups, gift mobilization, inspiring worship services and
functional structures.
NCD Australia have pioneered NxCD, and innovative approach to applying
NCD to church planting: www.ncd-australia.org.au/nxcd/imagine.php
Deliver the training in a way that maximizes your chances of getting church
planters and their teams in the room together for the training.
Train teams that are in year one together. If you broaden the scope and include
potential planters or planters who are in years two to four, you’ll dampen the
impact. Schedule other events for them.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 35
6 Farming
Growing future leaders
Task groups don’t plant churches. Experts don’t plant churches. Money and
training won’t get churches planted. You need the right sort of leaders—lots of
them. To plant 1000 churches, you’ll need 1000 pioneering leaders—at least.
Someone has come up with a computer program to help you plant a church.
There are 400 significant milestones on the to-do list. Number one on that
list should read: “Recruit pioneering leaders who can make it up as they go.”
Everything else is bonus.
It’s not complicated. You begin with the end in mind. What kind of leaders make
effective church planters? Answer that question, and then you go out and find
the people that match the profile and make them an offer they can’t refuse:
“Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”
Do that, and you’ve found maybe one-tenth of the leaders we need. The next
900 we’re going to have to grow. How do you grow leaders? Simple. You create
environments from which they emerge.
Here’s some homework: next weekend drive around your neighbourhood until
you find the local soccer, football, cricket, netball, or basketball club. Watch how
they grow junior players. Find out how they select the most promising ones
and move them on to more demanding challenges. Notice that some of those
players will end up in regional, state, national, and even international teams.
Now go and do the same in your local youth ministry. In 3-5 years you’ll have the
church leaders and church planters you need.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 36
How one
man grew
1000 leaders
Charles Simeon was the pastor of the Anglican church in Cambridge, England,
for 54 years. When he began pastoring there in 1782, there were only a dozen
evangelical ministers left in the Church of England. When he died, one in three
Anglican churches were led by evangelicals. The vast majority of these men
had been influenced by Simeon in Cambridge University. Many of them were
converted through him.
According to Bobby Clinton his strategy was simple. He formed relationships
with students via a series of concentric circles depending on their degree of
responsiveness. Simeon invested more time in those who responded to his
input. The outer circle included the entire student body at Cambridge. The next
circle involved those in his “Conversation Parties. Any student could attend and
discuss questions while they sipped tea. The following circle were the students
he invited to weekly sermon class. The next circle of just 6-8 met weekly for
supper and reflected on what they were learning that week. The inner circle were
the select few worked with Simeon as curates or interns in today’s language.
Out of his interaction with students came Simeon’s recommendations for
candidates for the mission-field and pastorate. Simeon recruited evangelical
students to Cambridge and then found parishes for them. He helped place
evangelicals in growing population centres and in the centres of influence.
Fifty-four years, 1100 leaders: this is what one man achieved in one lifetime.
Imagine if we had hundreds of Charles Simeons growing leaders all around
the country! We would have the leaders we need to reach a nation and go to
the nations.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 37
6 Farming
“The most extensive, pervasive strategic error in the Christian tradition lies
squarely in our coveted and generously supported, but unquestioned, concept
of years of “schooling” as the way for leaders to develop and be trained, every
church movement which has come to depend solely upon residential school
products for its ministry is dying.”
Ralph Winter, US Center for World Missions
We know how to grow leaders—
you do what Jesus did with His
twelve disciples.
It’s not complicated. You just need to care as much about growing church
leaders as a sporting club cares about growing athletes.
How AusKick does it:
www.steveaddison.net/2006/08/02/participation-pathway.html
7 Ways to Reinvent Ministry Training:
www.steveaddison.net/2005/09/09/7-ways-to-reinvent-ministry-training.html
How the Sydney Anglicans grow leaders:
www.steveaddison.net/2006/01/16/mts-grows-leaders.html
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 38
7 Parenting
Reproducing healthy churches
“If you can’t reproduce disciples, you can’t reproduce leaders.
If you can’t reproduce leaders, you can’t reproduce churches.
If you can’t reproduce churches, you can’t reproduce movements.”
Neil Cole
I caught up with a denominational field worker recently, and he mentioned that
he was visiting one of the healthiest churches in his denomination.
“Really. So are they interested in starting new churches?” I asked.
“No. They have no interest at all,” he replied.
I wondered, “Then how can that be a healthy church?”
The fruit of a healthy apple tree is not just apples—it is more apple trees.
Where there is life, there is fruit, growth, and reproduction. That’s how God
designed the world in which we live. That’s how His Kingdom advances and
how the Church grows.
Healthy churches reproduce. They reproduce disciples, leaders, ministries,
congregations, and new churches.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 39
Family Trees
Have a look at this family tree
from just one church, Richmond
AOG in Melbourne.
The diagram is a few years old, so you can expect that the family has increased
since then. At least 49 churches planted. At least 41 still in existence. That’s the
impact of one, truly healthy church.
Richmond AOG family tree: www.steveaddison.net/2005/06/17/family-planning.html
Here’s another family tree. This one from Holy Trinity in London. It’s also out
of date. One of their daughter churches, St Mary’s, is now planting churches in
England, New Zealand, Brazil and the US.
Holy Trinity family tree: www.steveaddison.net/2005/06/14/raising-a-family.html
This is how you persuade leaders whose vision doesn’t extend beyond their own
carpark: Ask them, Who planted your church? Ask them if they want church
history to end with them? Ask them to listen to the last message they gave on
tithing and apply the principles to giving away people and resources for church
planting. Show no mercy.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 40
7 Parenting
How do you successfully
reproduce a new church?
1. Cultivate a church vision and values that build commitment for church planting.
2. Choose a planting model that fits your philosophy of ministry and resources.
3. Recruit the right leader who submits a church planting proposal.
4. Build a partnership that is empowering rather than controlling or abandoning.
5. Celebrate and get ready to do it again.
Visit http://mirror4.video.blip.tv/Steveadd-HopeChapelChurchMultiplication130.mov
to hear how Ralph Moore of Hope Chapel Hawaii has helped reproduce six
generations of churches.
Learn from the best church planting churches.
Download and read Church Multiplication Centers by Andy Willliams:
www.efca.org/planting/media/leadership_network_high_yield.pdf
Now you should be fired up. Ready to go. There’s just one problem. Where’s the
money coming from?
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 41
If it’s not sustainable,
it’s not a movement.
Let us expose a myth
You may have heard a whisper just now, Church multiplication sounds nice,
but it requires a lot of money, specialised education, sophisticated organisation,
high-powered executive leadership, and costly buildings.
Answer with fact
“Churches multiply more readily around the world where these things
are lacking.”
George Patterson
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 42
8 Sustaining
Funding a church planting
movement
In the West we need to remember an important fact. Throughout history, when the
church has grown the fastest, it’s been in spite of its lack of financial resources.
If you feed wild ducks bread, you feel good, but they lose their appetite for algae,
invertebrates, and fish. They get fat and dependent. They become easy targets for
predators, and when the bread runs out, they starve.
Here are five principles on church planting movements and money:
1. If it’s a movement, it must be sustainable.
2. There is a direct relationship between long term subsidies and church health
and it’s not a good one.
3. The resources are in the harvest.
4. Money follows vision that is validated by action.
5. Those who don’t ask, don’t receive.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 43
8 Sustaining
Five options for funding sources
1. Bi-vocational church planters: follow Paul’s example.
2. Major donors: senior leaders cultivate major donors on behalf of the movement.
3. Individual support: church planters raise individual and church support, just
like missionaries do.
4. Closures: The funds from every church you close down are turned into seed
funding for multiple church plants.
5. Sacrificial giving: make sure every church planting team member is at least
tithing to the project.
God is faithful. He can fund any kingdom vision he puts on your heart if you’re
willing to learn the hard lessons.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 44
Their real power will
be evident when a
broad coalition of
groups undertakes to
implement them
Now you know what a church
planting movement must do:
1. Leading: developing the vision for church planting movements
2. Recruiting: finding the leaders we need now
3. Selecting: choosing the right people
4. Coaching: empowering church planters
5. Equipping: training church planters and their teams
6. Farming: growing the leaders of the future
7. Parenting: reproducing healthy churches
8. Sustaining: funding a church planting movement
The eight practices can be undertaken by any individual movement. Their real
power will be evident when a broad coalition of groups undertakes to implement
them in pursuit of a national church planting movement. That’s what’s next.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 45
What’s
next?
“We have a ‘strategic’ plan—
it’s called doing things.”
Herb Kelleher,
Founder of Southwest Airlines
It will take the whole church to reach the whole nation.
Each movement must play its part. We also need catalytic partnerships that
affirm both our diversity and our common calling to proclaim Christ.
1. What you can do
Read back through this paper. There must be a dozen things you could start
doing—today.
Ask God to help you clarify your vision, calling, and contribution to a national
church planting movement. Is it prayer, coaching, media, recruiting, vision
casting, growing leaders, giving, planting a church...?
What can you do now that will contribute to growing, mobilising, and
supporting the right leaders for church planting?
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 46
What’s
next?
2. What we can do together
As leaders with a passion for church planting movements we need to gather to
share our stories, our challenges, and what we’re learning. We need to pray for
each other and build momentum for a national movement of new churches.
Australia needs regional and national events that gather together people with
church planting on their heart for inspiration, networking, and training. We need
a list of ministries and resources that support church planting and a central
website to get the information out.
If we are trusting God for the next 1000 churches, we need to find a way to track
our progress nationally; to identify responsive and unreached locations and
people groups; and to research carefully what is and isn’t working in the field.
Essential reading from Bob Logan on
Church Planting Movements.
Available from: reszone@bigpond.net.au
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 47
Finally...
We can complain about the
state of our nation and the state
of the church.
Or we can do what Jesus did and go out and grow the next generation of
pioneering leaders, like Andy and Jo Bennett, who will reach our land and go to
the nations. Jesus’ disciples were less than perfect.
The churches they planted were less than perfect. Half the New Testament was
written because there was trouble in the church. But we are here today because
others passed on the baton. They have planted the churches that reached us
and nurtured us in the faith. It is time for us to do the same.
It is time to pass on the baton.
It is time to act.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 48
Who
wants in?
To stay in touch, visit
www.next1000.org
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 49
Spread
the word
Here’s what you can do
to spread the word about
next1000
1. Send this file to a friend.
2. Send them a link to www.next1000.org so they can download it themselves.
3. Print out as many copies as you like.
This ebook is protected under the Creative Commons license.
No commercial use, no changes. Feel free to share it, post it, print it, or copy it.
The next1000 Australian Churches
Steve Addison – www.steveaddison.net – Page 50
Related docs
