The Five Phases of a Church Planting Team

One of the many ways in which planting a church resembles raising a child is that you are unable to settle into a routine for long before everything changes on you again.

This is part of the joy of parenting, and it is also part of the joy of planting. It speaks of growth, as we see the things that we have been dreaming of and praying for starting to be manifest in reality. It also presents a challenge, because no sooner have you got your head around how things are and started to figure out some things that actually work for you current situation, those things no longer work and you need to develop some new ideas for the next season.

This is particularly true when it comes to your church planting team. You may have heard it said that church planting is a lonely business. You may have also heard that the people who start with you won’t be the people that finish with you. Both of these comments have an element of truth to them (though by no means are they true in every case), and they speak to the reality that developing a team in a church plant should be one of the key priorities for a planter. What this team looks like will vary depending on the phase of your church planting journey that you are in.