Several ways of Planting a Church

1. Several ways of Planting a Church

2. Two Categories Modality models – The modality models for church planting all involve one local church giving birth to another. Sodality models – if the focus of the modality model is the local church, the focus of the sodality model is outside of the local church in a separate agency, either a denomination agency or a parachurch or even from independent endeavor.

3. THE MODALITY MODELS

4. The Hiving-Off model Hiving off is the most common way of planting a daughter church. It simply means that the members of a local congregation are challenged to form a nucleus and at a predetermined time, these people will move out under the leadership of a church planter and become the charter members of a new congregation.

5. The Colonization Model Colonization is a more radical form of hiving off. In the colonization the new church is planted in a different geographical area, meaning that the nucleus members will make a move and find new homes, new jobs, and new schools in the target community. This will require a high level of commitment on the part not only of the church planter but the congregation who will join him.

6. The Adoption Model Church adoption, like human adoption, means that someone else gives birth but the child becomes part of your family. This model happens when a certain church can no longer support its operation and needs to be adopted by a bigger church in order to survive and revitalized.

7. The Accidental Parenthood Model While many of the births are planned by the parents, accidents still happen. It is also true with churches. Sometimes, the nucleus for a new church will break off from the parent church for reasons better described as carnal than spiritual. It may be from “theological shootout, personal conflict, leadership struggle or disagreement on priorities.”

8. The Satellite Model The satellite model is different than the previous models in that by design the new congregations are only semiautonomous. They continue to have an organic relationship with the parent church. Sometimes they are called annexes or branch churches. In most cases, the senior pastor of the mother church or central church functions as the senior pastor of each of the satellites.

9. The Multi-Congregational Model By definition, multi-congregational churches minister to several different ethnic groups. If properly managed, they are very effective in urban areas where many different minority groups live in geographical proximity to each other. Some multi-congregational churches simply share facilities with ethnic congregations that maintain their own autonomy, while others go so far as to share the entire church administration equitably.

10. The Multi-Campus Model The concept here is that one local congregation, led by the same staff, with one membership roll and budget owns and occupies two or more church properties, holding weekly worship services at more than one. On the other hand, multiple campuses have at times begun as the same church but ended up as separate churches.

11. THE SODALITY MODELS

12. The Mission Team Model A very common way of planting new churches is for a church planting agency to recruit, finance, and sponsor a team of workers to plant a new church. During the training, recruits are sent to their chosen target locations to establish contacts with the people and begin the process of church planting.

13. The Catalytic Church Planter Model God gifts and calls some very special people as catalytic church planters. Their ministry is to go into a new area, develop a nucleus for a new church, and then move on and do it again. The biblical prototype of a catalytic church planter was the apostle Paul. When Paul established a new church, he doesn’t stay there very long.

14. The Founding Pastor Model The founding pastor is sent out by the agency not only to build the nucleus but to pastor the new church for an indefinite period of time. Most of the times, they became the church permanent pastors. Frequently, the founding pastor is bivocational or a tent-maker since the new church cannot immediately support them.

15. The Independent Church Planter Model Independent church planters go out on their own to start new churches. They do not serve either a denominational or a parachurch agency. They have just sensed the calling of God in their lives to plant a church.

16. The Apostolic Church Planter Model In recent years, a new and very effective model for planting new churches has been developing chiefly within the independent charismatic movement. Many apostles have been founding pastors of new churches themselves; they work in team ministry and they use their local church as a base for church planting operations.