| Stage 2: Covenanting
7. Stage 2: Covenanting
GOAL: Have the 2 or 3 families covenant together to be the church, ministering to each other. PROJECT: Write a covenant defining the relationship believers are to have in their church. ACTIVITIES: Once the church planter has gathered 2 or 3 families who see that it is God's will for them to become the church, the next step is to commit themselves to be all that God calls them to be as the church. We do this through a covenant. The covenant enables the 2 or 3 families to define their relationship. They commit themselves to keep learning and applying the lessons of love and thus live out the community life of the church. Part of the covenant's statement relates how the community lives out the life of Christ and calls others to follow. Thus growth and reproduction are part of the covenant. During the gathering meetings, as spelled out in the booklet Entering the Kingdom, a person declares himself to be in the Kingdom by repenting, being baptized, and added to the church (Acts 2:37-41). We encourage church planters not to count converts until they take these 3 steps of initiation. Therefore the first families understand the importance of obedience to the Lord in these basic activities. We focus on the 3rd activity (being added to the church) in the covenanting stage. Sometimes we wait to baptize until they have agreed on a covenant, and sometimes we baptize first, depending on the nature of the group. Likewise, sometimes we wait to celebrate the Lord's table until covenanting, and sometimes we begin before. Remember, this is the engagement phase, so we want to make sure they move through it and don't get comfortable in it. Otherwise it is kind of like living together--some of the benefits without the bond (which will be essential once the honeymoon wears off). At this stage in the development of the house church we begin a Community meeting. In America we would probably meet on a Sunday, although the primary consideration should be when the families can actually meet regularly. The meeting will often consist of a worship time and a planning time. The planning time may include teaching, but it can also be for implementing what has been learned (like writing the covenant). Usually in preparation for a study time, a reading schedule is prepared by the church planter to be used in the homes of those forming the community. Families first study in the home what will be covered at the community meeting. Thus the heads of the home are taught early to take responsibility for shepherding in the home. For male heads of home, this is the first step in developing leaders, since leaders must care for their homes. These reading schedules assign a few verses each day, with a question to start discussion. The families are encouraged to spend 3-5 minutes each day reading the assigned Scripture and discussing the question, usually around a meal time. This forces people out of the passive learner's role so prevalent in churches today. The community meeting's teaching is often simply sharing what God has taught the family in his Word that week. Reading schedules during this stage might include verses or stories from Acts, Ephesians, the "one another" verses of the Bible, or a topical study on The Church. Reading schedules are available from the Fellowship of Church Planters or can be developed by the church planter. Remember, the purpose of the studies is to fulfill the project for this stage: write a covenant which defines the group's relationships. Community meetings should be divided between worship, study and applying the studies to drawing up a covenant. The Lord's table should be included during the worship time. The male heads of households should be taught to officiate at the Lord's table. Leadership of the various aspects of the meetings should be shared by all the men who covenant, on a rotating basis. The community meetings should be for believers interested in covenanting, not unbelievers! Separate men's meetings may be helpful at this point, to equip them to lead both in their own families as well as the family of God (the community meetings). Separate meetings for women can also be helpful as they will find different challenges from the men. Leading women can emerge at these times. Gathering meetings should continue and expand as other social circles are penetrated by the group. If two itinerant church planters are working together it may be wise to determine which one will head the work, and focus on leadership development. The other should focus on new gatherings. A whole new social circle might be penetrated while the group progresses through this stage; a second work would begin. Twins are planted! During this covenanting stage the church planter trains new men to help lead both the community meetings, and the gathering. The church planter focuses on training one or two key men. As new people are added to the gathering meetings and become believers, those who brought them take responsibility to ground them in the faith. We have developed materials to help young believers shepherd new believers into the community. These who bring new ones are taught to shepherd. Leadership develops naturally around these discipleship "chains". Men shepherd men and women shepherd women. Discipleship chains emerge along relational lines. Those attending gathering meetings are encouraged, upon becoming believers, to attend the community meetings. The purpose of gathering is to show people the complete salvation which God has wrought in Christ, which includes the corporate (church) aspect of salvation. They normally are brought through the initiation activities of repentance, baptism and preparation for covenanting by the person who brought them. The "spiritual parent" is often the one who baptizes the new person. Writing a covenant with its corresponding Bible studies and community interaction can be fun and helps build a loving community. This is why we call it the engagement stage. We have committed ourselves to marriage, but aren't married yet. But during this stage conflict often begins as well. The community begins to become a healing organism. People learn new ways to deal with conflict, selfishness, etc. In our experience, during the covenanting stage we have times when we despair of the group ever coming together. Most groups covenant, because dissolving the relationship becomes more a painful alternative than resolving the conflicts. When this happens you have a church, supernaturally touched by God and ready to live out its covenant. The covenanting stage is painful, but rewarding. The covenanting stage ends with Covenanting Together as a church (usually after drawing up the covenant and studying the booklet Covenanting Together as a group). We refer to the covenanting stage as engagement and marriage. Back |