Pre-work

 

Before arriving at Basic Training please complete the following six exercises and bring them with you.

 

1.   Church planting is always done within the context of a culture and a community.  Effective church planters understand their culture and community and allow what they know to impact the shape of their church planting efforts.  Before attending church planting Basic Training please seek to answer the following questions about the area in which you are anticipating planting.  The internet is full of resources. Use the following websites to help answer some of the questions listed below:  https://www.city-data.com/, https://www.wikipedia.org/, https://data.census.gov/cedsci/.

 

• What is most important to people in your target area?

• What are the greatest needs of your target area?

• Where do people spend time?

• How might your target area impact your planting strategy?

• Discover general demographic information

  • Number of people

  • Ethnic breakdown

  • Family structures

  • Educational attainment

  • Vocational involvement

  • Financial stability

• Are there geographically distinct locations within your target area?

• What is the history of the community?

• What is the attitude towards God and the church?

• Is the community a growing/declining area?

• How are people responding to the trends?

• What are the formal celebrations of the community?

2.  At Basic Training we will be talking about the value of understanding the geographical area which Jesus is calling us to impact.  Before arriving at Basic Training please get a map of the area and identify the following on the map: 

 

• Wealthy sections

• Middle class sections

• Poorer sections

• School locations

• Church building locations

• Apartments/trailer parks

• Industrial/commercial areas

• Recreational areas (parks, green space, sports fields) 

• Ethnic pockets

 

Also spend some time looking for and listing:

• Community-wide events

• Historical shaping events

• Major employers in the area

• Social needs

• Numbers of people in the target area

• Age breakdown

• Educational levels attained

• Identify how local churches are intentionally impacting the community

• Identify non-profits and what they are doing in the area

 

3.  Our time together will be focused on planting churches, obviously.  It is very important that we wrestle with the definition of the church, so we are clear on what we are seeking to plant.  Please write out a   brief statement on the definition of the “church.”

4.  Success is often a moving target.  How will you define success in church planting efforts? 

5.  Please complete the APEST test, done by following this link: http://fivefoldministry.com.         
    Print out the results and bring them with you.

 

6.  Finances are part of planting.  In preparation for our conversation on building a church planting budget,  Please build and bring a preliminary budget with the categories and dollar amounts for each category you anticipate needing in your planting effort.