BEWARE OF THE HAIL MARY CHURCH PLANTING APPOINTMENT!

Plenty of teams around the country are selecting planting-leaders for judicatory-funded new church projects right now. It is easy, when we get close to deadlines for personnel selection, to loosen our standards or candidate criteria. All ministry-related jobs should require extensive vetting, and multiple interviews prior to hire. However, few hires come with greater risks than a church planter. Most clergy lack the skills and/or life experiences that bode well for their attempting to plant a new church.


Great assessment tools are available, offered by various organizations.  Path 1 (United Methodist Church) most commonly uses Ed Stetzers' Lifeway battery of assessment surveys. The Lifeway assessment is not a perfect tool for assessing mainline planters, or for assessing planters who will be working under the senior leader of an existing church, planting a campus. But it is very good, scientifically normed and comprehensive in scope. The whole package costs a pittance if it is purchased through Path 1.  The reports supply both the candidate and the hiring team with really helpful information about how a person is experienced and/or wired. This information can drive more helpful interviews, helping the interviewer focus on the most critical questions.

I am amazed at how many folks are signed on to plant a church - often receiving full salary in order to do so - where little or no assessment was conducted prior to the hiring or appointment. 

I also am amazed at how often judicatories choose to fund people at 100 percent of salary for the first year. This is a very expensive way for the planter to learn the community. It is so much better to get a person situated in a community for 2-4 years before asking them to plant a church there.  Help them get another church job or secular employment.  When we place people as planters in alien surroundings at full salary support, we tend to blow through tens of thousands of dollars very quickly, with very little fruit to show for the investment, at least in the first year. Then we panic about a year in, and either pull the plug on the project or make plans to under-capitalize it from year two forward. Better to let a person start working the territory while their salary is coming from another entity! Or to start them at less-than-fulltime salary during the opening months when the work is slow-going. Then there will be more money to invest later when the ministry is ready to come up out of the ground, perhaps around the time of public worship launch.

If you are not sure that a person is ready, or the right fit for a planting assignment, please slow things down - there is seldom a planting challenge that cannot wait a few months for the right leader. Better to let a person train some more, learn the territory some more, or for the leader search group to search some more - rather than hiring someone who is unproven in the territory or the critical ministry skills necessary to plant.

Some helpful practices:

1. When you wonder if a person will be able to cast the vision in a particular planting challenge - challenge them to go raise $40,000 toward their own salary - within a couple weeks. That will require some vision casting!

2. When you wonder how a person will fare with a particular demographic - throw them in a room with people like unto those you hope to gather in the new ministry - and see how things go in that room!

3. When you interview, look for life experiences that involve starting anything new, recruiting talented people to follow them or persevering despite challenges.

4. When you want a second opinion, find two or three trusted people who have extensive hiring experience along with a planter who succeeded in her/his challenge, and invite them to do a second interview as a team.

5. If, after all that, and some good praying, you are still not sure, then best to wait and to continue to watch them in their present ministry setting.

6. And (maybe it goes without saying), after you find the right person, help that planter find a seasoned coach who fits them and their challenge! They will benefit from coaching during the first two years at minimum.

Blessings to each of you in this important season! Some amazing churches are going to be born in 2017!