A church planter’s focus three months after launch

Lee Stephenson: Welcome, everyone, to the Unfiltered podcast. Lee Stephenson here. And I have the privilege joy of serving Converge, overseeing Church Planting.

Danny Parmelee: Danny Parmelee. And I oversee Church Planting for Converge MidAmerica.

Lee Stephenson: And guess what, Danny. Today we have a question directly from one of our listeners. So, a listener submitted a question for us. And I think it's a great, great question for us to tackle. And just to remind all of our listeners out there, if you do have a question, and you would love for us to talk about it and share kind of our thoughts, our unfiltered thoughts about your question, feel free to send them to ChurchPlanting@converge.org. That's ChurchPlanting@converge.org. And we'd love to be able to sit and just dialogue and talk about that question. But the question today is, what should a church planter focus on at maybe that three-month mark? So, you've launched, you've had your grand opening. Now you're about three months post the grand opening. What should your focus be on at that point of the journey?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah. And I think they submitted this question, because we did one, you know what do you do three months before launch? What should that kind of look like? So, now kind of, as you're in those, you know, three months and three months, you know, beyond that, what should you kind of be focusing on? I still think that one of the key things that a church planter needs to do is meeting one-on-one with new people. Like that has got to be the biggest piece of the pie. As much as you can. So, as you kind of get going, and you launch people want you to settle in to be pastor right away. So, you're going to have those people where all the sudden, they want to meet with you every single week. And want you for counseling. And need advice on, you know, if they should break up with their girlfriend or not. Or you know, what job they should take. And there's a certain amount, yes, you need to do some pastoral stuff. But I think top of your list is man, here's the stack of connect cards that we had, and there's five new people. And they might not want to, but to reach out and say, "Hey, can I grab coffee? Just want to get to know you," type of thing.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, I think it's so important. You bring up a great point. Like early on the life of your church, you'll gain momentum, and you'll have greater impact. And you'll see growth based on your relational ability. It's being relational. It's being seen. It's having conversations. It's bringing people in. Like, the other pieces, components, like preaching is important and your worship is important. But it's not as important as the relational connection during that time period. And so, budget your time. Think through how many people can I connect with on a weekly basis? Space it out. Like, again, you're gonna have people that are gonna want you every single week. Maybe push it back. Hey, why don't we connect once a month? During that time period. I think the other thing I would say is really, really important to focus on at that time period is how do I get people connected? Beyond just even me? So, it's thinking through how do I onboard people to begin to volunteer? Whether or not that's, you know, guest services or worship team or children's ministry. I mean, it's proven the fact that when people have multiple relationships, the chances are the church is gonna be a whole lot stickier. You know, people are gonna stay. And so, you want to begin to facilitate relationship beyond just you as a pastor or you as a church planter, and help get people connected. And I don't like the term "assimilated," but it's more about building those other relational structures and giving them a task. Giving them something that builds ownership behind the church and how they can be a part of that.

Danny Parmelee: Yep. And we've shared this before, but the first I would say, maybe couple hundred people will come because of their relationship with you. And that may even be somewhat perceived relationship with you. So, if you understand that you have coffee with every single new person or text them or reach out to them in a personal way, that now has built that connection. It may need nothing else. You may not ever need to go to coffee with them again. But as they're sitting there and hearing you preach, and you had coffee with them one time, they think you're best friends. And they think that now, you know like you guys have this like super connection. And so, it's really huge to do that. But then what Lee was talking about is now how do you connect them though, to other people? So that their relationship is not only just with you. So, like it's your job to kind of make that initial connection but now you connect them with other people. And serving tends to be that best way. Which means that even if you have all of the greeters that you need - this is hypothetical because you probably almost always will need someone doing something. You have all the greeters, all the children's ministry, all the worship people you'll ever need. Don't need anyone else to serve. Well, you better make up some new roles. Because that's their way for them to connect with other people. So, that's an exaggeration. But just so that you're getting that in the back of your head. And it doesn't only have to be serving. So maybe you're, you know, creating it through small groups. Maybe you're creating it through just even some fun activities. Like oh, there's a bunch of people that are going out, and you remember the new person. And remember, there might be, you know, like, oh, that person, you know, likes jazz music as well. And there's some people going out for jazz. Hey, can you invite this new person? So, you're constantly making these connections, and even handing off some of those relationships. So, pie chart. As Lee said. So you're saying, "Okay, I've got a certain amount of time I can meet with people." You're going to have a bunch of that which are brand new, first time guests, so to speak. You got another that you're kind of maybe maintaining, doing some relational, pastoral stuff with. The other group that I'd put on there is that you're going to want to start to segment some of your time for those that are high capacity leaders. They might not have any different title than anybody else. But you're going to start to spend your time testing the waters a little bit with those that can be leader of leaders. Again, whether that's volunteer people, small group people, whatever. That you're just giving them just a little bit more time. There's not formal training, or anything like that. But you might just, "Hey, let's grab coffee, let's grab lunch," and invest in them a bit.

Lee Stephenson: And I think that's critical to unlocking the potential impact that your church can have. Like you need as a leader, you need other leaders that can reproduce themselves in other people. They're multipliers of the vision and the mission. And they can raise up teams, they can oversee teams. You can release some level of authority and tasks to them during that process. And it's never too late to begin fishing for those types of leaders. So, again, you got to move slow. So, it's not like, "Man, I like you. I think you're a leader. You're a leader in the works. Can you do this?" Like you're gonna freak them out. Or you're gonna create problems down the road that are going to take you years to, you know, to bring healing to. And so don't just lay hands on people very quickly. But look for those people. Fish for those people. Find out and get to know them. And so, get close up and close and personal. So that way, you really know like, can I trust this person? Can they be that potential key leader that we need in the life of our church?

Danny Parmelee: Yeah. The other thing with the first couple months is that there are some church planters, they put so much energy into launch that they feel like well, then they can take a step back. And I can't remember if we did do an episode on this already. But like your presence is still really important. And I hate to say this, but probably not taking vacation. Probably not taking pulpit time away. But you need to still be... Because within that first three months, you're still brand spanking new. So, you might have thought, oh, grand opening. No, your grand opening actually is the first three months. Think of when a new restaurant comes in. Not everybody comes on opening night. They come a weekend later, and two weeks later, three weeks, four weeks, five, six, seven, eight.

Lee Stephenson: They're still open!

Danny Parmelee: They're still...yes. So, it's exactly the same with the church. You'll still have this influx. So, you still... you know, you're still introducing yourself. You're still kind of casting the vision. You're still kind of sharing the story. You're still talking about opportunity. You just have to still be acting almost in that same way that you're just having so many new people. Even if they are just looky-loos and whoever. Because some of those people might end up sticking. So, some of that isn't maybe not a tactical, but a frame of mind thing that you still have to be just giving it your all.

Lee Stephenson: And I think at that point, like it's good to begin to do some type of first time gathering group. Where it's like, hey, if you're new, once a month, we do a lunch with the pastor or whatever you want to do. But creating another space where you can even sit down and have a group conversation with ten other people to share the vision, answer questions. It's an efficient way to use your time and not feeling like I have to get one-on-one with every single person but I can do it in a small group. And so, think about introducing that. But when you do that, you need the next step. You know, you've got the attention of your audience in a small group. And you're sharing the vision. You're pouring your heart out. Make sure you connect the next step even after that. What does that look like? Is that a gospel presentation? Is that baptism? Is it serving? Like, you need to think through each layer of where you want people to go and how you're going to actually get them there.

Danny Parmelee: Right. I'm a big fan. And again, I think we've discussed this on a different episode, but of doing a, you know, pizza with a pastor. Lunch with a pastor. That happens directly following service. That means that you don't really need registration. Someone doesn't need to make plans. They don't need to get a babysitter. You figure out, you make it really easy, and it's not intimidating. Some pastors do, like dinners at their house. There's pros and cons to that. So, you have the same thing where you can do the batching. In other words, like, hey, Sunday night, we're grilling out in the backyard, and you know, new people come over. Well, again, you increase the level of kind of intimacy. Like, "Wow, the pastor invited me over to his house!" The downside is, if you have one person show up, it can be really, really awkward type of thing. And for a lot of people that's just really hard to schedule. But it depends on your community. It depends on your context. So, experiment with those different things. But then, like what Lee said, is you have to say, "Hey, thank you so much for coming. By the way, if you want to sign up to volunteer on the, you know, host team or the worship team. Or here, take this form home with you or fill this out right now." But those types of touchpoints with the new people just go such a long way.

Lee Stephenson: Yeah, absolutely. And make sure you're still staying connected with those that help you launch the church. You know, celebrate. Find multiple ways to continue to celebrate with them, what God is doing. That will just continue to fill their cup. Because they're critical still in the life of your church as you kinda move forward, and you're onboarding new people into different roles. But I think the biggest thing is like just continue to have fun. You know, three months in...now the honeymoon phase has worn off. And you're realizing like this isn't going to stop. Every Sunday I've got to preach. Like it's the rhythm can get challenging in some ways at that mark. And so just find ways to continue to break away. Thank God for what he's done. And celebrate what is going on and have fun in the moment. Great, great, again, great question. And to our listeners out there. If you have any questions, feel free to reach back out to us at ChurchPlanting@converge.org. We'd love to be able to take more questions and just talk with you about it on the podcast. Thanks for tuning in. And until next time, keep it real.