Passion for Planting

Passion for Planting’s support ministries are an outgrowth of our local church experience at New Life Christian Church (www.newlife4me.com) in Centreville, VA.   New Life is a multi-site church with a big heart and passion for church planting.   New Life is an independent Christian church associated with the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ.

In 2002, New Life’s leadership became convicted that improved support services for church planters were needed.  A survey of church planters in the field found that 100% were consumed in the administrative details (e.g. equipment, marketing, facilities, etc.) to the exclusion of focusing on people and building relationships (e.g. core group development, vision casting and communications, and community networking).  Armed with the gift of leadership and teaching, most of these church planters lack the administrative and project management skills necessary to coordinate large initiatives.  As a result, these planters become consumed in the seemingly endless details of starting a church and struggle to find enough time for relationships. 

The result:  difficulty establishing momentum, underdeveloped launch teams, disheartened church planters, and less healthy new churches.  

Passion for Planting

In 2002, New Life founded a church planting support ministry called Passion for Planting
(www.church-planting.net) to help church planters stay focused on primary matters.  Our philosophy is to offer high-quality, low-cost support services in the areas that traditionally consume a church planter’s time.  As a non-profit, our only motivation is providing the best possible support to church planters.  We give away a number of free resources (e.g. launch checklists, equipment lists, etc.) via our web site.  Through our full-service marketing ministry we’ve helped churches in nearly every state with over 20,000,000 direct mail cards.  Our project management services have been praised by many national church planting leaders as a valuable and truly unique tool.  In our short history, we've been blessed to help over 100 new churches and we are growing rapidly as more churches and organizations learn about our unique services. 

Service Ministries

Church planters spend their time, energy and money on five primary areas.  These include people/relationships, staffing, marketing/outreach, equipment, and administration/operations.  Our strategy is simple:  to provide support on marketing/outreach, equipment, and administration/operations to free planters up to spend more time on people, relationships and staffing.  Our support goes well beyond coaching and consultation to actually helping church planters complete their launch actions.  Our template launch plan (which we help each church planter customize to fit their unique model and context) includes over 400 actions.  We help church planters manage these launch plans and complete the individual actions.

Our specific service ministries include:

Church Marketing Solutions (www.church-marketing.com)  functions as a non-profit, full-service marketing organization for churches.  We offer demographic, design, printing, and mail shop services at a fraction of the price of most commercial organizations.

Church Planting Solutions (www.church-planting-solutions.com) offers project management services to new churches.  Our online system has a template launch plan with over 400 actions.  We help manage the plan and complete many of the actions for church planters.  This service is unique (we are not aware of any other organizations offering it).
 

Mobile Church Solutions (www.church-equipment.com) - helps new churches identify and procure their equipment.  This ministry is currently in the startup phase.  Services are being offered to churches using our Church Planting Solutions services.   The service will be available to other churches in the near future.

Leading Edge Ministries

In early 2005, we founded Leading Edge Ministries (www.leadingedgeministries.org) as an alliance of leading service providers that are committed to new church work.  This new organization will be a single web site where church planters can go and get all the startup services they need in one site (of high quality vendors with a demonstrated commitment to new church work).  In working with church planters, we found that most church planters spend considerable time finding trusted vendors who are committed to new church work and offer great value (i.e. vendor who provide quantity, quality, low cost, and great customer service). 

National New Church Conference

There are no cross-denominational national conferences focused exclusively on new church work and raising the visibility of church planting.   Passion for Planting (www.church-planting.net) recently agreed to assume responsibility for the National New Church Conference.  In the past, this annual conference has drawn 200-300 people primarily from independent Christian churches.  We are turning this conference into a truly national, cross-denominational conference with a target of over 500 people attending.  The 2006 conference is in Orlando, FL on April 25-27.   The lineup of speakers includes an all-star lineup of church planting leaders and speakers.

Church Planting Search Directory

We author the only commercial strength church planting search directory.   The directory has includes over 1000 organizations grouped by topical area.   The organizations included in the directory provider services to churches.   The directory is growing every day.   Check it out at www.startingchurches.com/cpssearch.htm.    The search directory toolbar is easily added to any web site.

The suggest site feature allows anyone to recommend a site for inclusion in the directory.   The get search feature allows anyone to easily add the toolbar to their web site.

Church Planting Networks

Our Director co-authored a point paper on collaborative church planting networks in early 2005.  The paper was enthusiastically embraced within the Christian Churches.  In response, we are providing leadership in the following areas:

• Emerging Leadership Initiative (ELI) – www.elichurchplanting.com – ELI is a collaborative network of church planting churches founded by John Burke of Gateway Church in Austin TX.   ELI is currently planting its first church.   We are a partner in this plant.   The vision is for this network to expand with each of the participating churches forming a new network.   We are currently in this second generation of multiplication.
• Reengineering of Stadia New Church Strategies – Stadia is the largest church planting organization in the Christian Churches.  They are committed to transitioning from a traditional “organization centric” approach to a decentralized collaborative network approach.  Our Director is leading the complete reengineering of Stadia to participate in a national collaborative network.
• Church Planting Network – We are founding members (along with Orchard Group) in a new non-profit organization called the Church Planting Network (CPN).   This national network will serve to bring Restoration Movement Christian Churches together in planting churches.  A number of networks have already formed with plans for relatively rapid expansion.
• Church Planting Alliance (CPA) – We are forming an organization that will function similar to Leading Edge Ministry.  CPA will be an online directory of church planting networks.  It will be one web site where you can find information about church planting networks.   We intend to add as many networks as possible to the site.   CPA will also highlight service providers that meet quality standards defined by the Church Planting Network (see above).  

Other Ministry Partners

We have a close relationship with a growing number of other church planting service providers including CoachNet, Church Coaching Solutions, Church Planting Assessment Center, People Driven Software, Group Imaging, National Church Purchasing Group, Percept, New Thing Network, etc.  Our plan is to become a “one-stop-shop” for church planters to get as many of their services as possible through a collaborative network of service providers committed to church planting.   We are positioning this collaborative network to service church planting networks across the country.  Many networks are looking decentralized, low-cost, high-quality services for their plants.   We are seeking to fulfill that need.

Converge – New Church Launch Plan Development and Management

Converge is a revolutionary step forward in church planting support.  It’s an entire church planting management system that delivers the best church planting resources in an easy to use system.  You will get more of the right things accomplished and in less time.   The result:  you will spend more time with people and less on administration…and it’s priced for any church planter to afford.  Converge is Three Powerful Applications in one…a training module, a launch plan creation module, and a launch plan management module.  Version 1 was released in September 2005.  Version 2 is a joint partnership with Bob Logan of CoachNet and is being endorsed by many church planting leaders.  Version 2 will be released in early 2006 with significantly expanded functionality.

Contact us toll-free at 866-342-5264.