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…

  1. Just-in-time training is the best way to equip a church planter because the learning loop is short.
  2. The ideal context he told me, would be the church where the planter is already engaged.  
  3. 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.

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