May 7th and 8th

9:30am until 4:00pm (both days) 

Baptist Mission Resource Center

10255 Old Columbia Rd

Columbia, MD 20723

Next Steps for Church Planters is the NEW SEQUEL to Basic Training and provides a comprehensive review of your church’s health and vitality coming out of your first year in ministry, post-launch.  Our Convention requires all funded church planters to attend it as a part of a first annual evaluation of where your new church is “at” and where it’s going.

The content of this training is built around the eight “healthy church” characteristics of Natural Church Development. In coordination with the NCD Survey, it will help you evaluate and know where to apply your efforts and energies in the coming year for maximum impact. You are encouraged to have completed the NCD survey with 30 of your key leaders at least two weeks (but no more than three months) before attending this training. The information on this report will help you analyze the health of your church and, with this training, will enable you to develop a prescription for strengthening your new church qualitatively. We believe this will also result in greater growth quantitatively over time.

The cost per person is $99.00.  This provides for all of the training, the materials, meals and a one-year subscription to the Next Steps files for personal use at CoachNet online.  Additionally, if you want to purchase the NCD survey because you are desiring to do so for help in applying the training from this event, we will offer that tool to you at a subsidized cost of only $100.00. Regularly, if purchased for required use with funding renewals or grant opportunities, there is a cost to your church of $200.00 for this tool, so this is a great way to get the tool at a dramatically reduced rate along with training on how to implement its results effectively in a church plant setting.

Of course, housing options are at your own additional cost if you choose to stay in this area, and a list of hotels can be provided.  Sorry, but children are not permitted.

To register fill out the form below.  Registration is limited only to invitees, so please respond with names of those attending by April 1st as plans need to be made for the events.

Vision/Goals

Our vision is to facilitate a church multiplication movement of healthy, harvest-focused and reproducing churches…we believe that to accomplish this vision God will lead us in starting more than twenty new churches every year from now until 2010, and beyond…

Strategy

Our strategy is a seven-step process:

• First, there is preparation.  This includes prayer efforts and site location, which is usually determined by Associational Directors of Missions or Parent Churches.  
  
• The second step is partnership, where a parent church, along with the association and even potentially other congregations or organizations, joins the new church planting efforts.  
  
• Third, there is recruitment of potential church planters.  Discovery Tools and Assessment Centers help evaluate potential planters. 
  
• Fourth, we provide comprehensive training, beginning with Boot Camp/Basic Training experiences for planters and their spouses.  
  
• The fifth step is nurture and support for the planter and his family.  This includes a coach and mentor, peer learning clusters known as “Church Planter Networks” and “C. P. Spouse Networks”, and fellowship opportunities.  
  
• Sixth, we focus on evaluation, and we do this through “check ups” over the course of the foundational development of the new church.  
  
• Finally, there is reproduction, in which church plants are prepared to become “parent churches” themselves.
  

Our Church Multiplication Team, made up of planters, parent church pastors, associational directors of missionaries and state staff, help facilitate this church multiplication movement.

No top down hierarchy here!

System

Our Church Planting System is built around the following: 
 
Prayer

• Prayer is recognized as foundational to everything that must be done in church planting.
• A “prayer network” is in place and will be developed, with regular communication given to all participants.

Recruitment

• We are engaged in active and regular recruitment of potential church planters, both at seminaries and within the borders of our convention.
• The North American Mission Board’s “Nehemiah Project” is a focal area for recruitment.

Assessment 

• All potential BCM/D church planters (and their spouses, if married) will be assessed to determine their church planter temperament and abilities.
• Only assessed church planters will receive BCM/D funding.
• Assessment will be done locally, if funding is involved.

Training

• All funded BCM/D church planters are required to attend "Focused Living" and “Basic Training” within several months of beginning their work. Spouses are strongly encouraged o attend.

Coaching 

• All funded BCM/D church planters are expected to select a “coach” for two years from the BCM/D coaching network.
• All coaches have received training for this relationship.
• All coaches are also strongly urged to attend “basic training” with their planters.

New Church Incubators 

• Learning communities are established for church planters and spouses that provide them with regular training and fellowship.

Parent Church Process

• Systems are established for enlisting, training and supporting parent churches. These “parent church” networks will address needs, problems and support.

Location of Church Planting Sites  

• The eleven associational directors of missions within the Maryland/Delaware area are responsible for the selection of the sites for new church starts.
• Each Association will always have at least THREE locations in preparation.

"Anchor" Churches

• These new church starts 3-7 years of age have demonstrated their commitment  to Kingdom values and are targeted for greater growth and reproduction, as well as a deeper leadership role in the future of the BCM/D.

"Teaching" Churches

• These churches have shown an effectiveness and DNA for church planting. They are used as a training ground for interning potential church planters.

Language/Ethnic Starts 

• Special attention is given to the starting of new churches among language/ethnic groups.
• Catalysts/Language missionaries and our Advisory Councils help us to be aware of their needs and opportunities.

Funding 

• Basic funding continues to be through the annual cooperative budget between BCM/D and NAMB.
• Other financial streams which may produce funds for church planting include the State Missions Offering, funds from the Bull Endowment Legacy as well as gifts from other “partnership” arrangements.

Marketing 

• Our Church Planting Efforts will be marketed as fully as possible using the BCM/D Communication Center's expertise while utilizing the giftedness of other available sources.

Multiplication

• All plants are expected to reproduced more than once over the course of the next decade, with the first church plant started before year five in their own existence.