Partner with a new church.

BY PASTOR ANDY COYLE

Church planting is front-line missions. These new congregations face a great amount of spiritual warfare, pressure, and volatile emotions as the gospel is planted in a hostile environment. As a family of congregations, we have the privilege of caring for and supporting these ministries. How can a congregation care for a new church plant in another state? Here are a few ways for you to consider:

Support team: Create a support team for the purpose of intentionally connecting the ministry of the sending church to the church plant. This team would help organize and plan all other ways of support.

Prayer: Prayer is the primary work of God’s people. You and your congregation can partner in this vital way by praying regularly in church services and staff meetings. Remind your church of their commitment, responsibility, and privilege to pray. Have them set their phone/clock alarms to an agreedupon time and stop and pray. Create a prayer chain that will commit to immediate prayer for real-time requests and needs. Pray over the specific community of a church planter.

Inform: Share quarterly updates in a worship service. Share printed materials and the planters’ social media platforms. Encourage them with regular messages of “You have been prayed for today.”

Give: Financially support the church plant as your primary local or national mission. Make a longterm commitment until the plant is self-funding and self-governing (three–five years). Provide prayer cards and direct the congregation on how to support their missionary. Bless the planter and spouse in generous ways that will nurture their marriage or family life. Enlist other financial partners for the church plant. Church planting is costly. It takes a coalition of churches to plant a new church.

Assist: Allow the planter and congregation to have access to the institutional systems you have, for example, financial or accounting software or marketing resources. Do you have members who are especially gifted in certain areas (technology, audio) that could help train or advise?

Learn: Take opportunities to read and study the art and science of church planting. This will help you become a stronger supporting congregation, get a greater sense of God’s mission in the world, and manage your expectations.

Care: Provide prayer cards and direct the congregation on how to support their missionary. Provide date night and childcare opportunities for the planter and family. Assign small groups and Sunday school classes to routinely write cards and letters of encouragement to the planter and congregation. Send the planter to church planting and ministry conferences.

Serve: Send mission teams from your congregation for strategic ministry (outreach, service, prayer, construction). Allocate two or three Sundays a year for your pastor to attend/serve at the plant. If you are local, organize volunteer teams to regularly assist with ministry help on Sundays. This may include sending a few families to serve as church members for the first year. There are certainly many more creative ways to come alongside a new congregation in their early years of volatility. Your partnership in the gospel is so important and deeply needed.

Coyle is the executive director of AFLC Home Missions.

Connecting in ministry.

To discuss ways to connect your congregation with a new ministry, contact Pastor Coyle:

• andy.coyle@aflc.org

• (763) 412-2018