CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Withdrawal of the Church Planter

Introduction
The church planter constantly reminds the leaders and the congregation that his calling is itinerant; he will be moving on once the church is complete and an elder has been appointed (Cf. Titus 1:5). He keeps lowering his profile in the congregation as other opportunities for house churches appear in the area. He absents himself from the community meetings so that the new leaders can be tested. He coaches the new leaders from behind the scenes as they shepherd the sheep. In the reproducing stage, the church planter confines his ministry to the new leaders. They care for the shepherding needs of the flock. The paper "Caring for the Flock" (Appendix 18) helps them do this.

The church planter, in all stages, maintains close proximity to a new church until a network of at least three house churches and three elders has been established. (More on this in the Section III.)

The church planter constantly keeps in mind that he is itinerant and must move on. God will use the leaders He has ordained in the church to lead the church. But the question comes up as to how church planters interact with churches they have left when they are still in the same proximity.

How Teams and House Churches Interact
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between house church fellowships and teams of local church planters. As with foreign missionaries relating to newly established national churches, the relationship has potential for conflict. But it is also a mutually beneficial union through which large areas can be reached with the gospel. We will point out the dangers in the interaction between itinerant church planters and local elders, as well as the way to a fruitful interaction between them.

Church planters must keep in mind one overriding principle: the goal of the team is to establish local churches which take responsibility for reaching their own town or city for the kingdom of God. This entails three phases in church planting: Establishment, Disengagement, Coaching.

Establishment Phase
In the Establishment phase the church planters are usually highly visible. They do much of the teaching and influence the decisions. The two members of the church planting team usually serve as the initial leadership. They start one or more "gathering" meetings which eventually become a network or fellowship of house churches. A "gathering" meeting is for evangelism; 2 or 3 families embrace the savior to become a church. Once these families have been united in Christ, they draw up a covenant to define their relationship to one another in the house church as well as their relationship to other emerging house churches in the cluster. The goal is to establish clusters of house churches which network together for strength and stability (We call such a cluster a house church fellowship).

As the church begins to work on its covenant, the church planters seek men whom God has called to shepherd his church and begin to train them to lead. At this stage the church planters profile begins to diminish in the house church as more responsibility is given to the emerging leaders for running meetings, discipling new believers, decision making, planning, etc. As other house churches covenant to form a house church fellowship, the emerging leaders network together. We call this the Fellowship Overseer Board. This can be compared to the more traditional "presbytery". The church planters laboring in the emerging network also serve on this board, but should not take positions of responsibility (e.g. moderator, financial officer, etc). The emerging leaders need to take responsibility for these things. Once a Fellowship Overseer Board has been formed, the church planters enter a Disengagement Phase.

Disengagement Phase
This phase begins when three or more house churches have come into existence close enough to form an house church fellowship. At least two male leaders have been recognized in each house church, and they have begun meeting together on a regular basis for fellowship, counsel, and encouragement. (That is, a fellowship overseer board has been formalized). The leaders may be designated as "shepherding deacons" or provisional elders. Mature women may also be recognized as "shepherding deacons" with the responsibility for shepherding the women. These leaders shepherd the members of house church in which they are members. Usually at this point, if two CP's were involved in the start up, one will have moved on to other gatherings, leaving the other behind.

The role of the remaining church planter continues to diminish as he takes a lower profile, helping sparingly as he trains the emerging leaders. He will likely not attend all the church meetings, dividing his time between this house church and new gatherings (either in this fellowship or elsewhere). He may rejoin the other church planter who had worked with him. This enables the new leaders to take responsibility and avoids the temptation for the church planter to allow the group to become dependent on him.

This Disengagement phase ends with the appointment of two or more elders in the churches of the fellowship. At this point the church planter will still likely be serving with the fellowship overseer board, but arranges for the new elders to take over as the coaches and trainers of other leaders not yet ready for eldership in the other house churches. Once elders are ordained in the Fellowship, their place as overseers with authority over the house churches must be affirmed publicly. The church planter at this point should no longer see himself as the one who is responsible before God to care for the churches of this fellowship. Rather, the new elders should see that as their responsibility. They should train other emerging elders so each church can be adequately shepherded. They also should train leaders for additional churches growing out of the already existing churches. The fellowship itself should take the initiative to penetrate its geographical region with the gospel by establishing new house churches. It is likely that the original church planting team will still be of help, as it moves on to penetrate new areas.

Coaching Phase
The church planters have disengaged and may now be working on the geographical periphery of the Fellowship, perhaps in gatherings that can be nuclei of new Fellowships. If these new gatherings are part of the existing fellowship, the church planters should make it clear that they are serving at the invitation of the new leaders. They may continue to serve on the fellowship overseer board since they will once again be the initial leaders of emerging churches, but should have no more say than the others. As itinerants, they should not occupy a position of primary responsibility within the board. They serve as a resource to the new leaders of the house churches and should make themselves available to help in any way they can. This help includes special training for individual leaders, counseling, trouble shooting, special teaching for the churches, etc. In every case, however, the church planter should not merely do the ministry (e.g. marriage counseling of a troubled member) but equip others for it (e.g. Go with one of the elders and do the marriage counseling, letting him take over. He may, in turn, train a shepherding deacon who can train still others.).

If the church planter has moved on to another territory and is no longer serving with the fellowship overseer board, he will still be concerned that the work flourish and reproduce and should thus keep up relationships so that he can remain a resource. He might attend the board meetings as a guest or come back for short periods as a coach. If that particular church planter is not available, he might encourage the leaders to ask another church planter for help.

Observations
Although house church fellowships will usually begin as house churches from different communities networking together, the goal is to have house church fellowships in each community or neighborhood. That is, each community will have 2 or more house churches whose goal will be the continued penetration of their area for the kingdom; new house churches continue to emerge and become part of that network. When two or more house churches exist in a single community, the church planter should see this as a Community Fellowship, and encourage the leaders to focus on that particular community, even rearranging the Fellowship as needed (e.g. group peripheral house churches into a new fellowship). The church planter should confine his church planting efforts to peripheral areas, leaving the new churches to penetrate their own community. He can still coach them.

Our experience shows that teams of local church planters and house church fellowships create a creative tension. We should keep the groups relating to one another creatively. Church planters by nature tend to look outside to the fields and push for more evangelism and church planting (gathering meetings). Elders (and leaders of house churches) tend to look inside the church and see a need for more discipleship and training (ministry meetings). BOTH ARE NEEDED. As church planters work with fellowships, these two needs must be regularly reviewed and debated to maintain a healthy balance. Sometimes the fellowship overseer board needs encouragement from the church planter to reap the harvest, and sometimes the elders need to encourage the church planter to allow healthy consolidation to take place (Both, of course, do this in love under the direction of the Holy Spirit). It is healthy for the two groups to remain in close relationship to influence one another and thus find what is pleasing to the Lord. God has used this dynamic greatly in Rhode Island to bring about growth and change.

Key Principles
1. A Church Planter’s authority is temporary and thus once elders are appointed he needs to exit.

2. The church planter and the team can still have a valuable service to the church, but needs to do so in a way that does not undermine the authority of the elders.

3. The nature of the different call of church planter and elder will lead to tensions in the relationship. These tensions should be used creatively and not corrosively.

Questions for further thought
1. How would you characterize your relationship with your leaders?

2. How would they characterize it?

3. Are you a permissive father? A harsh disciplinarian? A doting father? What will be the results?

4. Where are you likely to err in the exiting? Leave to early? Leave to late? Leave, but like a in-law who is always putting their nose into it?