| Chapter 7
Purpose If teams are set up as outlined above, mentoring networks should emerge naturally as the church planting teams themselves reproduce. The original leader trains an emerging leader to form his own team but remains networked as he learns the ropes of being a team leader. As any team leader knows, a team looks substantially different as one moves from being a team member to being a team leader. There will be much to impart to these new leaders. The purpose of this chapter is to give a brief overview of the experience of the Fellowship of Church Planters (FCP) in starting a church planting team which grew to a point of reproducing new church planting teams. The role of the team leader in aiding the reproduction process will be reviewed, along with principles we have found which aid this reproductive process. Finally considerations when a team is looking to reproduce itself in a cross-cultural setting will be outlined.
Our Experience in Reproducing Picking up from our early experience as outlined in Chapter 2, by 1991 the team had expanded to 10 people and we were spread from Rhode Island to southern Massachusetts. Even as a single team we were planting several churches at one time. We were training interns from overseas who visited the team for several months in addition to new church planters being added to the team from the churches. As the team leader, I was unable to keep up with the training needs. Usually this meant evaluating each intern in character and competence, tailoring a training program for them and then meeting with them weekly to evaluate progress. Often there was personal discipleship, marriage counseling, etc. that took time as well. Likewise, since all the other men on the team had secular jobs and now lived over a wide geographical area it was impossible for the entire team to meet together for training and prayer. This led us to break the team into two sub-teams with Jim Frost heading up one of the sub-teams and Mike Buffi (a member of the team since 1987) the other. I met with Jim and Mike weekly helping them to learn how to train and utilize the men and women on their teams in the most effective ways. They met with their sub-teams without me present to pray and discuss strategy (which focuses on movement) and tactics (specific steps to get movement) of church planting required for the particular church they were planting. In this way, Mike and Jim were learning the task of team leader that I had exercised over the previous five years. As Jim and Mike proved capable, the subteams became two teams, one focusing on southern Massachusetts, the other on Rhode Island. I became a team member on Mikes team but available to Mike and Jim as a mentor. I was beginning to travel more to other countries to help other pioneer church planting teams and therefore could no longer be effective as a team leader. Mike and Jim were responsible as team leaders for training the church planters on their respective teams and coaching them from behind the scenes so that they might become effective in the tasks of church planting; evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development. Just as I had trained them, they were now training others. The Fellowship of Church Planting Teams (which has now become Fellowship of Church Planters International) was born. It continues to grow by reproducing teams as well as networking with other teams from other parts of the country and the world which approach us for help.
Patterns for Team Leaders to Enable Teams to Reproduce Reviewing our experience, several patterns emerge which are important if reproduction of teams is to occur. 1. The team leader needs to have as his primary responsibility the training of his team members and allowing them to learn by doing the hands on work of church planting. As such, he will serve primarily as a facilitator of the team and mentor. His teammates will have a variety of gifts. The team leader needs to be certain that the individuals are being utilized in a way that is conducive to accomplishing the task. He must also allow them to be stretched in new ways as God may direct that they be used in areas that may not be their primary area of gifting. We have found this stretching to be important for three reasons: A. It enables the church planter to grow by leaning on the Lord as well as grow in his or her perspective of the work. B. Often we find that new areas of giftedness are exposed in as he/she matures over the years and the team's needs change. A church planter who can only see the work through his/her gifts (eg. an evangelist) is often blind to other areas which are vital to see a reproducing church established. If they don't develop a wider perspective, they can become a disruptive liability to the team. C. Once there is exposure to other aspects of the work he/she often grows in appreciation for those whom God has gifted in complementary ways. This appreciation leads to greater intentional cooperation with other complementary gifted people. The team member is becoming more of a team player. 2. The team leader needs to constantly stand back to evaluate the progress of the work (strategic reflection). He is responsible to see that the resources (people) are being used in the most effective ways both for the present work and also being developed for growing responsibility for the future. 3. The team leader needs to avoid doing the team members tasks for him, confining himself to helping only when the team member is "stuck". An impasse is an opportunity to train other teammates in the skills needed to overcome obstacles. People learn best by doing. Thus, even though the TL is likely to do a much better job at the various tasks, he needs to serve more as a coach than a player. Of course there will by many times when the TL needs to model the lesson to be learned. But he should turn over responsibility to the teammate as soon as possible. In this he serves as a player/coach on the team. He also needs to give much encouragement to those attempting new things. 4. The team leader must form close bonds with his teammates. As he trains them, he should keep an eye out for areas in which they lack experience or understanding in the task of church planting. As important as this is, it is even more important to get to know his teammates well enough to see character flaws which will be exposed in the course of carrying out the various tasks in church planting. These are where transformational ministry will take place. These character flaws are best addressed in the context of loving, secure relationships where the teammate knows that the team leader genuinely cares for him and wants what is best for him. As the church planter makes progress in his walk with the Lord he will become an encouragement and model to newer believers in the church in which he is laboring. As the team member learns how to apply the scriptural principles in renewing areas of his life, he will have opportunity to pass these on, normally in the context of the church, but also with newer members of the team as they are added over the years. Indeed, the team leader should be sure this is happening since it is unlikely he really understands these things until he is able to pass them on. 5. The team leader should always be on the lookout for new potential team leaders. He needs to realize that God has called him to reproduce himself in others whom God has called to this ministry. To these prospective team leaders he should be certain to give special attention. Every opportunity should be made for them to be exposed to every facet of the complex task of church planting. As soon as possible, the prospective leader should be given other younger church planters to train. Eventually he and his younger church planter(s) should function as a sub-team in order to see how he functions in a limited team leader capacity. As he grows in skill and confidence, he should be encouraged to launch out as a separate team. In some cases it may be the old team leader who launches out into new areas leaving the newer TL to head up the team which remains in that area. If a team is functioning in a restricted access country where there is danger a person might be expelled, high priority should be given to the team leader finding an apprentice who can be trained as a TL. That way, if the present TL is expelled, the team can continue in its task with less disruption and continuity of ministry can be sustained. This emerging team leader needs to be kept fully informed of all the different relationships and expectations in which the team is involved. 6. An important task of the team leader is to be certain that conflicts and disputes which arise from having diversity of gifts and perspectives on the team are resolved in a Godly way which leads to the maturing of all those involved and the appropriate functioning of each part. Doing so will teach the team members skills which will be important to pass on to the church. This will also offer the team leader great opportunity for personal growth as he will often have to confront his own flesh in order to deal with strife on the team, much of which is likely to center on him. 7. A word about facilitating team leaders other than those developed from within the team (eg. teams operating at a distance and therefore unable to serve in a resident apprentice program with the team). It is easy to be driven by the expediency of reproducing teams. It is likely if you are a successful team leader that other men who desire to be team leaders will be drawn to you. Some may want to be immediately recognized as team leaders of separate teams while they pick your brain. I think it is important that as much as possible these prospective leaders be integrated onto an already existing team before they become team leaders. This integration will likely expose character flaws which will arise later, and with far worse consequences when they are a team leader. A good principle is that those whom God has called to lead He has first called to follow (Mt. 20:25-28). There may be team leaders who are successful by starting in that position, but most would benefit greatly by starting within a team and learning the ropes from a position of following someone with greater experience. (The exception to this would be when starting a cross-cultural team--that is, one whose team members are from a different culture. This is covered below.) 8. There may be times when there is no other choice but to facilitate a team leader who has not been developed from within a team. This is especially true of team leaders who are geographically removed from your team and already actively engaged in church planting. If they do not have any churches coming together you might still encourage them to intern with your team and thus follow the procedure in #6 above. However, if churches are already being formed, this is probably not wise. In the latter case it is wise to draw up a covenant which clearly spells out the expectation of the relationship between the two team leaders. Expectations of the mentor and TL should be spelled out such as: reporting procedures and frequency, visits, accountability, training, etc. A procedure for conflict resolution between the mentor and team leader is especially important to agree upon before conflict arises. A specified duration for the relationship is wise with periodic evaluations and escape clauses as a possibility as the relationship changes over time. (See Appendix 7 Sample Mentoring Covenant) 9. A team leader may find himself highly successful at facilitating new team leaders. If this is so, he might consider whether or not the Lord is calling him to the ministry of mentoring team leaders as his primary task. (see Chapter 8). In this case he may have to step down from active Team Leader responsibility and serve with a team instead. This will often free up more time for him to be absent from his team in order to visit teams he is mentoring.
Starting Cross-Cultural Teams If a team is planting churches in a different culture, the team leader should recognize that God is likely to call some of those who are being won to Christ to the ministry of church planting. A major purpose of a church planting team laboring among an unreached people should be to reproduce an indigenous church planting team. This team will plant reproducing churches as well as spawn new teams. Eventually some of these teams will be called to cross-cultural church planting as well. It is possible that a team of national church planters could even come into existence before a church does. The team leader will have to use much wisdom in discerning the emerging believers who might have an apostolic calling to plant churches. He needs to be certain that their motives are pure and their eye clear in seeking the Lord's will. Impure motives for power and prestige will lead to destruction in the churches and tarnish the Lord's reputation. It certainly will be necessary that the team leader himself have all the logs out of his eyes in these areas! He will need further wisdom to know how much an emerging team leader from another culture should be exposed to the life of the western team. Certainly there will be greatly different structures and procedures on the new team than there would be on the western team. For instance, western teams generally have high financial needs with most on the team deriving some support from the west. A local, indigenous team would likely all be made up of tentmakers, which simplifies structures greatly. For example, FCP is such a local team of church planters here in R.I. It is made up almost completely of men who derive their support by secular jobs. This sets a good example for the believers in the emerging churches who don't look for a two-tiered (clergy-laity) Christianity. It also allows the team to operate without having to spend effort at fund raising, accounting procedures, etc. Obviously this is very different from a team of missionaries who has been sent by churches here in the U.S. to another country and have to go through the process of support raising, entrance strategy, furloughs to sustain relationships and support and now finds itself in a cross-cultural situation with all the complexities that it involves. (Although this is perhaps the norm now amongst western missions, we are exploring teams which will be made up of tentmakers. This model will definitely help set the pace for national teams.) The new, indigenous, national team must be encouraged to find new paths which are relevant to their needs as opposed to simply following procedures which may be necessary and relevant to a western team. Indeed these western methods will likely convey patterns which will inhibit the freedom of the new team. Therefore it is likely wise to keep the nationals separate from a good deal of the team activity until it is clear what may be transferable. But the basics of leading a team, including developing skills of evangelism, discipling and leadership training, should still be transmitted from the team leader to the new national team leader. Encouragement should be given to the new leader to develop and utilize new, and perhaps more culturally appropriate methods to accomplish the above tasks. The western team should not try to exert control over the methods employed by the new team. Instead they should encourage new paths, praying hard that they will find the Lord's will. Once an indigenous team of church planters is planting new churches, training new church planters and sending out new teams to other parts of the country, the original team(s) task is complete. They can move on to another people group. It may be wise to bring an indigenous team from that former nation to speed the task if the next people group is close culturally. At the very least it would likely be wise to include members from the national team on the new team going to the new nation (since all the members will be in the new case cross-cultural). This seems to have been the strategy of the Apostle Paul picking up Luke, Timothy, Epaphras, etc. Maybe it would even be wise to step aside as team leader and allow one of the members from the closer culture to lead the team. Then the old team leader could serve as a mentor.
Worksheet 1. Have you set up discipleship chains on your team (see Manual for Planting House Churches in Networks for more on discipleship chains)? Draw them out to evaluate the relationship of team members to each other. Be sure you include the women. 2. Who are the emerging team leaders? Can you set up any to become semi-autonomous sub teams focusing on a particular church planting work? 3. What kind of accountability will you have with the sub-team leaders? If teams are set up as outlined above, mentoring networks should emerge naturally as the church planting teams themselves reproduce. The original leader trains an emerging leader to form his own team but remains networked as he learns the ropes of being a team leader. As any team leader knows, a team looks substantially different as one moves from being a team member to being a team leader. There will be much to impart to these new leaders. The purpose of this chapter is to give a brief overview of the experience of the Fellowship of Church Planters (FCP) in starting a church planting team which grew to a point of reproducing new church planting teams. The role of the team leader in aiding the reproduction process will be reviewed, along with principles we have found which aid this reproductive process. Finally considerations when a team is looking to reproduce itself in a cross-cultural setting will be outlined. Our Experience in Reproducing Teams Picking up from our early experience as outlined in Chapter 2, by 1991 the team had expanded to 10 people and we were spread from Rhode Island to southern Massachusetts. Even as a single team we were planting several churches at one time. We were training interns from overseas who visited the team for several months in addition to new church planters being added to the team from the churches. As the team leader, I was unable to keep up with the training needs. Usually this meant evaluating each intern in character and competence, tailoring a training program for them and then meeting with them weekly to evaluate progress. Often there was personal discipleship, marriage counseling, etc. that took time as well. Likewise, since all the other men on the team had secular jobs and now lived over a wide geographical area it was impossible for the entire team to meet together for training and prayer. This led us to break the team into two sub-teams with Jim Frost heading up one of the sub-teams and Mike Buffi (a member of the team since 1987) the other. I met with Jim and Mike weekly helping them to learn how to train and utilize the men and women on their teams in the most effective ways. They met with their sub-teams without me present to pray and discuss strategy (which focuses on movement) and tactics (specific steps to get movement) of church planting required for the particular church they were planting. In this way, Mike and Jim were learning the task of team leader that I had exercised over the previous five years. As Jim and Mike proved capable, the sub-teams became two teams, one focusing on southern Massachusetts, the other on Rhode Island. I became a team member on Mikes team but available to Mike and Jim as a mentor. I was beginning to travel more to other countries to help other pioneer church planting teams and therefore could no longer be effective as a team leader. Mike and Jim were responsible as team leaders for training the church planters on their respective teams and coaching them from behind the scenes so that they might become effective in the tasks of church planting; evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development. Just as I had trained them, they were now training others. The Fellowship of Church Planting Teams (which has now become Fellowship of Church Planters International) was born. It continues to grow by reproducing teams as well as networking with other teams from other parts of the country and the world which approach us for help. Patterns for Team Leaders to Enable Teams to Reproduce Reviewing our experience, several patterns emerge which are important if reproduction of teams is to occur. 1. The team leader needs to have as his primary responsibility the training of his team members and allowing them to learn by doing the hands on work of church planting. As such, he will serve primarily as a facilitator of the team and mentor. His teammates will have a variety of gifts. The team leader needs to be certain that the individuals are being utilized in a way that is conducive to accomplishing the task. He must also allow them to be stretched in new ways as God may direct that they be used in areas that may not be their primary area of gifting. We have found this stretching to be important for three reasons: A. It enables the church planter to grow by leaning on the Lord as well as grow in his or her perspective of the work. B. Often we find that new areas of giftedness are exposed in as he/she matures over the years and the team's needs change. A church planter who can only see the work through his/her gifts (eg. an evangelist) is often blind to other areas which are vital to see a reproducing church established. If they don't develop a wider perspective, they can become a disruptive liability to the team. C. Once there is exposure to other aspects of the work he/she often grows in appreciation for those whom God has gifted in complementary ways. This appreciation leads to greater intentional cooperation with other complementary gifted people. The team member is becoming more of a team player. 2. The team leader needs to constantly stand back to evaluate the progress of the work (strategic reflection). He is responsible to see that the resources (people) are being used in the most effective ways both for the present work and also being developed for growing responsibility for the future. 3. The team leader needs to avoid doing the team members tasks for him, confining himself to helping only when the team member is "stuck". An impasse is an opportunity to train other teammates in the skills needed to overcome obstacles. People learn best by doing. Thus, even though the TL is likely to do a much better job at the various tasks, he needs to serve more as a coach than a player. Of course there will by many times when the TL needs to model the lesson to be learned. But he should turn over responsibility to the teammate as soon as possible. In this he serves as a player/coach on the team. He also needs to give much encouragement to those attempting new things. 4. The team leader must form close bonds with his teammates. As he trains them, he should keep an eye out for areas in which they lack experience or understanding in the task of church planting. As important as this is, it is even more important to get to know his teammates well enough to see character flaws which will be exposed in the course of carrying out the various tasks in church planting. These are where transformational ministry will take place. These character flaws are best addressed in the context of loving, secure relationships where the teammate knows that the team leader genuinely cares for him and wants what is best for him. As the church planter makes progress in his walk with the Lord he will become an encouragement and model to newer believers in the church in which he is laboring. As the team member learns how to apply the scriptural principles in renewing areas of his life, he will have opportunity to pass these on, normally in the context of the church, but also with newer members of the team as they are added over the years. Indeed, the team leader should be sure this is happening since it is unlikely he really understands these things until he is able to pass them on. 5. The team leader should always be on the lookout for new potential team leaders. He needs to realize that God has called him to reproduce himself in others whom God has called to this ministry. To these prospective team leaders he should be certain to give special attention. Every opportunity should be made for them to be exposed to every facet of the complex task of church planting. As soon as possible, the prospective leader should be given other younger church planters to train. Eventually he and his younger church planter(s) should function as a sub-team in order to see how he functions in a limited team leader capacity. As he grows in skill and confidence, he should be encouraged to launch out as a separate team. In some cases it may be the old team leader who launches out into new areas leaving the newer TL to head up the team which remains in that area. If a team is functioning in a restricted access country where there is danger a person might be expelled, high priority should be given to the team leader finding an apprentice who can be trained as a TL. That way, if the present TL is expelled, the team can continue in its task with less disruption and continuity of ministry can be sustained. This emerging team leader needs to be kept fully informed of all the different relationships and expectations in which the team is involved. 6. An important task of the team leader is to be certain that conflicts and disputes which arise from having diversity of gifts and perspectives on the team are resolved in a Godly way which leads to the maturing of all those involved and the appropriate functioning of each part. Doing so will teach the team members skills which will be important to pass on to the church. This will also offer the team leader great opportunity for personal growth as he will often have to confront his own flesh in order to deal with strife on the team, much of which is likely to center on him. 7. A word about facilitating team leaders other than those developed from within the team (eg. teams operating at a distance and therefore unable to serve in a resident apprentice program with the team). It is easy to be driven by the expediency of reproducing teams. It is likely if you are a successful team leader that other men who desire to be team leaders will be drawn to you. Some may want to be immediately recognized as team leaders of separate teams while they pick your brain. I think it is important that as much as possible these prospective leaders be integrated onto an already existing team before they become team leaders. This integration will likely expose character flaws which will arise later, and with far worse consequences when they are a team leader. A good principle is that those whom God has called to lead He has first called to follow (Mt. 20:25-28). There may be team leaders who are successful by starting in that position, but most would benefit greatly by starting within a team and learning the ropes from a position of following someone with greater experience. (The exception to this would be when starting a cross-cultural team--that is, one whose team members are from a different culture. This is covered below.) 8. There may be times when there is no other choice but to facilitate a team leader who has not been developed from within a team. This is especially true of team leaders who are geographically removed from your team and already actively engaged in church planting. If they do not have any churches coming together you might still encourage them to intern with your team and thus follow the procedure in #6 above. However, if churches are already being formed, this is probably not wise. In the latter case it is wise to draw up a covenant which clearly spells out the expectation of the relationship between the two team leaders. Expectations of the mentor and TL should be spelled out such as: reporting procedures and frequency, visits, accountability, training, etc. A procedure for conflict resolution between the mentor and team leader is especially important to agree upon before conflict arises. A specified duration for the relationship is wise with periodic evaluations and escape clauses as a possibility as the relationship changes over time. (See Appendix 7 Sample Mentoring Covenant) 9. A team leader may find himself highly successful at facilitating new team leaders. If this is so, he might consider whether or not the Lord is calling him to the ministry of mentoring team leaders as his primary task. (see Chapter 8). In this case he may have to step down from active Team Leader responsibility and serve with a team instead. This will often free up more time for him to be absent from his team in order to visit teams he is mentoring.
Starting Cross-Cultural Teams If a team is planting churches in a different culture, the team leader should recognize that God is likely to call some of those who are being won to Christ to the ministry of church planting. A major purpose of a church planting team laboring among an unreached people should be to reproduce an indigenous church planting team. This team will plant reproducing churches as well as spawn new teams. Eventually some of these teams will be called to cross-cultural church planting as well. It is possible that a team of national church planters could even come into existence before a church does. The team leader will have to use much wisdom in discerning the emerging believers who might have an apostolic calling to plant churches. He needs to be certain that their motives are pure and their eye clear in seeking the Lord's will. Impure motives for power and prestige will lead to destruction in the churches and tarnish the Lord's reputation. It certainly will be necessary that the team leader himself have all the logs out of his eyes in these areas! He will need further wisdom to know how much an emerging team leader from another culture should be exposed to the life of the western team. Certainly there will be greatly different structures and procedures on the new team than there would be on the western team. For instance, western teams generally have high financial needs with most on the team deriving some support from the west. A local, indigenous team would likely all be made up of tentmakers, which simplifies structures greatly. For example, FCP is such a local team of church planters here in R.I. It is made up almost completely of men who derive their support by secular jobs. This sets a good example for the believers in the emerging churches who don't look for a two-tiered (clergy-laity) Christianity. It also allows the team to operate without having to spend effort at fund raising, accounting procedures, etc. Obviously this is very different from a team of missionaries who has been sent by churches here in the U.S. to another country and have to go through the process of support raising, entrance strategy, furloughs to sustain relationships and support and now finds itself in a cross-cultural situation with all the complexities that it involves. (Although this is perhaps the norm now amongst western missions, we are exploring teams which will be made up of tentmakers. This model will definitely help set the pace for national teams.) The new, indigenous, national team must be encouraged to find new paths which are relevant to their needs as opposed to simply following procedures which may be necessary and relevant to a western team. Indeed these western methods will likely convey patterns which will inhibit the freedom of the new team. Therefore it is likely wise to keep the nationals separate from a good deal of the team activity until it is clear what may be transferrable. But the basics of leading a team, including developing skills of evangelism, discipling and leadership training, should still be transmitted from the team leader to the new national team leader. Encouragement should be given to the new leader to develop and utilize new, and perhaps more culturally appropriate methods to accomplish the above tasks. The western team should not try to exert control over the methods employed by the new team. Instead they should encourage new paths, praying hard that they will find the Lord's will. Once an indigenous team of church planters is planting new churches, training new church planters and sending out new teams to other parts of the country, the original team(s) task is complete. They can move on to another people group. It may be wise to bring an indigenous team from that former nation to speed the task if the next people group is close culturally. At the very least it would likely be wise to include members from the national team on the new team going to the new nation (since all the members will be in the new case cross-cultural). This seems to have been the strategy of the Apostle Paul picking up Luke, Timothy, Epaphras, etc. Maybe it would even be wise to step aside as team leader and allow one of the members from the closer culture to lead the team. Then the old team leader could serve as a mentor.
Worksheet 1. Have you set up discipleship chains on your team (see Manual for Planting House Churches in Networks for more on discipleship chains)? Draw them out to evaluate the relationship of team members to each other. Be sure you include the women. 2. Who are the emerging team leaders? Can you set up any to become semi-autonomous sub teams focusing on a particular church planting work? 3. What kind of accountability will you have with the sub-team leaders? Back |