Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
God's given you a vision to plant a church. You're gifted and maybe have the team ready to go. However, there are thousands of details and hundreds of questions that you have. In this podcast we will answer some of the common questions and answer listener submitted questions to help you fulfill the call the Lord's given you.
Welcome back to 101 Questions Church Planters Ask. My name is Chris Ifill. I'm your host today. Welcome back. I am super excited about today's topic that we're gonna cover.
Chris Highfill:And the topic today, is a question that I get all the time. In fact, I just got this question yesterday. A church planter asked me this question. And about once a month, a church planter that's in pre launch phase will ask this question. And the question is this.
Chris Highfill:What do I do with my launch team? And I had this same question 10 ago as we were launching Grace River Church. I didn't know what to do with my team. I think it's really important to start with this, though. Make sure that you call it a launch team meeting, not a core team meeting.
Chris Highfill:We covered this in an earlier episode. And I just want to remind you, language is super important as you build and develop culture. And language here, make sure you call it a launch team because the difference between a launch team and a core team is pretty significant. You're launching a church together and then once that's over with, you're able to throw a hand grenade into that team and say, hey. Now everybody is equal around here.
Chris Highfill:But the term core team kind of insinuates, hey. I've been around for a long time. I'm a part of the core team. And so you can't have disagreements with core team people. Core team people have favoritism and things like that.
Chris Highfill:Launch team is temporary. Core team lasts forever. And so it's really important that you call, we're we're not gonna tell you every single label that you should have for the for the lifespan of your church, but it's really important as you launch the church to call it a launch team. Team. So you're having your Launch Team meetings.
Chris Highfill:Maybe you meet every week. Maybe you meet every other week. Whatever the frequency of those meetings are, it's really important, that you have some kind of agenda, that you have some kind of plan. And I'm gonna give you today the top 10 list of things that you ought to do with your launch team. And maybe you're already doing some of these things with your team.
Chris Highfill:Learn from some of the mistakes that I made with my launch team. And the first thing that I'm gonna tell you to do with your launch team, this is a mistake that I made, is this. Have fun. Alright? I know that sounds super simple, but literally have a good time at launch team.
Chris Highfill:Have music playing ahead of time. Have music afterwards like background music. Make it fun. Make sure there's food there, and make sure you're well rested. There was times with my launch team that I don't think I was rested enough.
Chris Highfill:And so we would have a a party at our house with launch team people over, and my kids were acting crazy or whatever. I may have been a little bit short-tempered with them in front of launch team people. Like, you wanna make sure that you're having a good day. Right? Because that's attractive for people, and you wanna be well rested and having a you know, like, ready to have a good time.
Chris Highfill:You ought to think about launch team meetings every time you get together. Yes. You're gonna do some spiritual stuff, but you're gonna have a party for Jesus every single time. And so make sure that it's a good time. Make sure you're laughing.
Chris Highfill:Make sure that you didn't just get in an argument with your spouse. Okay? You want to prepare, in advance that you're gonna have a good time with your team. Also, the second thing is make sure the mission is front and center. Alright?
Chris Highfill:Like like it's got to be obvious that like the mission of God is front and center. You're launching this church and you're not launching it so that you could be the coolest church in town that Christians can attend. The mission of God needs to be front and center and that's this, that you're gonna make disciples, that you're gonna reach people that are spiritually disconnected, that you're gonna reach unchurched and de churched people. You're not launching this church, for other Christians so you can develop a whole brand new holy huddle. And so I would say at every single Launch Team meeting, make sure that the mission of God is upfront and center.
Chris Highfill:Okay? That's really, really critical and really, really important. Don't miss that. And so you wanna make sure that you got the mission upfront and and really close for people so they understand. They're no one's confused about why this church is getting started.
Chris Highfill:And you would be surprised. I you know, early on in the life of the church, I thought that everybody knew our mission and vision. I thought that I was repeating enough times, and I clearly wasn't because I had a guest come and speak to my launch team. And the guest asked the question, hey. What's the mission of this church?
Chris Highfill:And it was crickets. And I remember thinking, man, I thought that I've said this way too much. And the old adage or the old rule about, like, repeating your mission is this, is that you need to be repeating it so much that you wanna throw up every time you're saying it. Like, that's how sick of it is that you should be. And until then, people really aren't getting it.
Chris Highfill:And so you gotta make sure that you're repeating the mission over and over and over again. Also at launch team number three is talk about your values as a church. Okay? Now I say when it comes to mission, that is something that needs to be foundational, and you should not leave it up to your launch team to develop the mission of the church because that's already in the Bible. That's in Matthew 28.
Chris Highfill:That's in Acts chapter one verse eight. And so there really isn't much debate about what the mission of the church should be. That's already there for us in the Bible. But I do think what's nuanced in the life of every single new church is what will the values of this church be. And so I always tell church planters, make sure you come to launch team meetings with some values in mind, but bring a whiteboard, or bring those gigantic big sticky notes, along with you and and dream together about what the values of the church should be.
Chris Highfill:Now I say dream together. You need to have some of those ready to go. I like to say when you're in this phase with your launch team deciding what the values of the church will be, it's important that you it's almost like you're you're making cement together. You already have brought the wheelbarrow. You've already brought the water in the concrete, and you've even, like, shoveled some of the mix in, and you're inviting them to mix with you at Launch Team.
Chris Highfill:Okay? And so you want their buy in. You want, what they're thinking about. And just simply ask questions like this. What should this new church be about?
Chris Highfill:What should we value here? And everything that you value is something that can be measured. Right? So in in the life of every church plant, it's really interesting. Generosity always seems to be a value.
Chris Highfill:Right? Well, you measure generosity. Right? So how can you measure it? Well, you can know what your offerings are.
Chris Highfill:And so, that's a way or you could know how many volunteer hours people are committing to different service teams. Like, you can measure that. Right? So make sure that all the other values are measurable as well. Okay?
Chris Highfill:So that's really important, and it's important that you don't just rip those off from another church or another church plant. But you make those unique. You know, get three to five of those values down. You don't want too many because you want people to be able to remember what the values are because you also wanna be able to celebrate when those values get met. Like, I think, just to be honest with you, I think one of the values that every church plant should have is a value of fun.
Chris Highfill:Right? I know it's kinda tough to measure sometimes, but you should be able to measure like, man, people had a good time tonight. Right? Or people had a good time at our church. We had a fun Sunday.
Chris Highfill:So you wanna create an environment where people want to be wanna be around. That's just a suggestion. Come up with your own values, but, man, I think it's really important, that you're creating some kind of value system along the way. I think you also should pray at every launch team meeting. It's pretty obvious, but, like, you know, you wanna pray for more than just the food that you ate.
Chris Highfill:But, you know, carve out designated time in launch team meetings. Even carve out designated seasons in your launch team where, hey. Tonight, all we're gonna do when we get together is we're gonna pray. Like you may want to have launch team meetings once a month where it's just about prayer. You know, you can't you can't buy a move of God.
Chris Highfill:Okay? You can't. Like like we've thought a lot about what makes a church plant happen, and the prayer component is one that we oftentimes overlook. And in your leadership, it's really important when you get together with your launch team, that you're spending time together, intense times together where you're praying, and you're not just praying for the health needs of the people in your group, or the person's dog who has, you know, only only three legs or whatever. Like, I like, you need to pray for your community.
Chris Highfill:You need to pray for things that are broken in your community. You need to pray for marriages to be restored. You need to you need to pray that God would provide all the finances that you'll need. You need to pray that God would provide, people that are far from him. Like, you need to create that kind of culture and an environment day one with your launch team is we're gonna pray for people that are far from God.
Chris Highfill:I think it's also, really great to break up. You think about where you're gonna, meet as a church, go pray there, as a launch team. You think about the the neighborhoods, around that church or even the apartment complexes around, that location where you'll meet as a church, go pray around those neighborhoods and even designate roads for people to go pray on and have them walk. And it doesn't have to be some weird thing, but have them take prayer walks and divide that up. We did that as a launch team, and it was a really powerful night.
Chris Highfill:And it was amazing because whenever some of those people would actually show up to our church over the neighborhoods that we prayed over, we were like, man, isn't it amazing to see God come through in this kind of way? And so as a leader and as a spiritual leader, you ought to be leading your team, to pray together. And so that's another avenue that you can think about when it comes when it comes to your launch team. The fifth thing is go visit other churches. Okay?
Chris Highfill:This is really great to do as a launch team, but make sure, that you're not just in the same routine over and over and over again as launch team. And so, man, we we visited other churches of Launch Team, and I would get permission before you do this, like, get permission from that pastor, from somebody on staff there, take them to lunch or coffee ahead of time, get that permission from them and just say, hey. We would love to to learn from you guys. We're in learning mode about how to do guest services or how we should, park people in the parking lot, what our service orders should look like. Like, just go and experience other churches and visit a half a dozen if you'd like.
Chris Highfill:Right? And take your launch team along with you and then, go to lunch afterwards or set up a follow-up launch team meeting and do what we call a four helpful list of what was right, what was wrong, what was missing, and what was confusing. And just talk about that as a launch team. Like, what was that like, when we pulled up in the parking lot? What was right, wrong, missing, confusing?
Chris Highfill:What was it like, whenever you walked into the lobby? Was it confusing? Was there enough signage? Did you know where the bathrooms were? How was the coffee?
Chris Highfill:Did it taste good? Did they serve it in a styrofoam cup or a paper cup? Like, did they have stevia? Did they have Splenda? Did they have you know, creamers that that what weren't like rotten?
Chris Highfill:Like, what was it like? Was kids check-in smooth or was it complicated? You know, just walk through a list of things like that. How did the service feel? Were there clear next steps in the sermon?
Chris Highfill:Like, what what did it motivate me to do? Like, think through all of those different nuances, and, like, have a conversation together and think back. What do our values have to say about that? And that four helpful list is really important that you're evaluating things and, you know, what was right, what was wrong, what was missing, what was confusing. And so those are would be super helpful ways for you to kinda, like, take all of the data that you, like, get from these different churches and then put it into practice in your own church.
Chris Highfill:Not that you're stealing or ripping off ideas. Sometimes you'll have a bad experience, and that's what you need your team to sometimes see to go, wow. That's what it feels like to be new somewhere. And so make sure you're doing that, which leads me to the number six thing. Go do fun things with your group.
Chris Highfill:And so one of the things that we did is we went and played bingo together, as a launch team. And then that that taught us a ton because none of us knew anything about bingo. And so people that play bingo are very regulars at playing bingo in their bingo hall. Like, it's super interesting because the the bathrooms weren't clearly marked. We didn't know the rules of bingo.
Chris Highfill:It was really complicated and really difficult for us. And we went and had pie that night at Perkins afterwards, and we we kinda did a debrief. We did the four helpful list, what was right, what was wrong, what was missing, what was confusing about bingo. And there was a whole lot that was, like, wrong, missing, and confusing. And we were out of our element, which guess what?
Chris Highfill:Someone who comes and visits your church for the first time, they are also out of their element. And so it's important for you to feel what that feels like so you can create an environment and a culture where when people show up on day one, they're not confused about where to park. They're not confused about, like, what doorway to walk into. They're not confused about what to do with their kids. They're not confused about what's gonna happen in this church service.
Chris Highfill:You know? Are we gonna stand up? Are we gonna sit down? How long am I gonna listen to this? You know?
Chris Highfill:What's this song about? Like, all of those things, you can't assume that everyone knows what's happening in church, especially if you're reaching people that other churches aren't reaching. Like it's it's actually shocking what the first six months are gonna feel like in the life of your church whenever you reach people that are far from God because they're not gonna know any of the songs. They're not gonna know when to clap. They're not gonna be amening you whenever you preach.
Chris Highfill:Like, all of a sudden, you don't have the home field advantage that you once did. But listen, it's an amazing ride and those are the kinds of people that you want to reach. And those are the kind of people that we know that God is the most passionate about. You look at Luke chapter 15, and it was the the the things that were missing. Right?
Chris Highfill:So it's really important that you're creating the kind of culture where you can learn as a launch team and go explore other things. Go to festivals. Go go do things. Go be out in the culture. Another thing is we went and visited a parade, right when we moved, to the new this new area that we were gonna live in.
Chris Highfill:And my launch team, there was only six or seven of us at the time, but we went to a Saint Patrick's Day parade. And that was one of the biggest things in the community. And we learned a ton about what makes the community tick just by going to that parade. So experience some things like that. Number seven, is meet in other places besides just your home.
Chris Highfill:I know sometimes the default for a church planter is, oh, we'll just meet at our house. Meet a lot of different places. Go meet in a park and have a barbecue and get some inflatables and have a have a good time with your team. But also it's a great way to meet other people. You know, go to restaurants and have a launch team meeting.
Chris Highfill:Don't just use your home. Use other people's homes as well. It's a great chance for people that are new to your team, to feel ownership. Our living room was kinda small, and so we quickly outgrew it. And so we we had a person on our launch team that said, hey.
Chris Highfill:If you ever need our home, feel free to use it. And so we started to. And so we had the majority of our launch team meetings weren't even at our house, and it gave other people ownership because what people on your launch team really need is relationship and responsibility. And so you can give them that, but oftentimes we put too much of it on ourselves. So let even let other people provide the snacks, like figure out ways to give as many responsibilities as a way as you can with your launch team.
Chris Highfill:That was a big mistake that I made is I I put kind of the weight of most of that all on my myself and all on my wife or all on our worship pastor when really we had lots of people, that were looking for ways to get involved very early on. And so, number eight is test them and find little ways to see who's a servant and who's not. And I had a mentor tell me to do this early on, and I tried it out. One of our launch team meetings were actually at the YMCA that we would later use as a church. And, we were just using one of their community rooms because launch team all of a sudden was getting too big for somebody's living room.
Chris Highfill:So, we we used a YMCA community room space. And instead of setting all the chairs up early, I actually waited till the first, group of launch team people got there. I left them all in, like, stacks of 12. And it was a test to see who on the launch team would unstack the chairs and put them into rows. And you know what's amazing is there was people that showed up and they consulted me.
Chris Highfill:Well, how many how many chairs should we put out? Right? Or how many rows should they be? And then there was other people that just came and said, well, we know we gotta put them out, so let's just get the chairs out there. It was a test of leadership to see who would get involved.
Chris Highfill:And I think what's really important in the early days of your launch team is, man, always be thinking who here is really a servant? Who's here who here is willing to do something outside of what's expected of them? Because those are the people that you can trust with more. Those are the people, that you know can take big next steps with you. If they're always if they're always needing somebody to ask them to do something, they're only leading themselves.
Chris Highfill:They're not probably gonna be the kind of people that are gonna lead others someday as well. And so test them with little things. This is really important. Share stories of life change. Number nine, share big stories of life change.
Chris Highfill:You know, I talk to a lot of church planters that are frustrated like, what can they do to raise that temperature? I always ask, well, tell me like, what can they do to raise that temperature? I always ask, well, tell me some of your stories like that. And oftentimes, they don't have stories. And as the church planter, as the lead pastor, as leaders in the movement of this new church, you need to have your own stories, of what God is using you to do.
Chris Highfill:And it's you you need to find relational connections and be able to have spiritual conversations with your neighbors or spiritual conversations with a parent on a little league team that you're coaching, or spiritual conversations with somebody that's out in the community, like finding ways to have those spiritual conversations early on are really important because you need to be able to go to your launch team and go, man, listen to a conversation I had this week with a friend that I met through the Chamber of Commerce. And you can tell the story about how you had a cup of coffee with this person, and how they're far from God and they're gonna actually show up, to one of our interest parties. They're gonna show up to one of our preview services or to a worship night. And, dude, nothing gets your team fired up like knowing that you're out there doing what you're asking them to do, which I'm pretty sure that's what Jesus would ask of us as well. Right?
Chris Highfill:And so we're not above any of that. So make sure, that you've got your own stories and that even as you hear stories of other people on your launch team, tell them, hey. That they're gonna share the story with you personally more than likely. Like, oh, I had a spiritual conversation with this guy that I work out with or whatever. Right?
Chris Highfill:You need to say to that person on your launch team, hey. Would you mind sharing that story in our next meeting and letting that be like testimonial time? Well, listen to this because what you celebrate gets repeated, which lead leads me to number 10 on the list. Make sure that you're celebrating milestones. Celebrate stuff.
Chris Highfill:This goes right along with number one, having fun. But at number 10, the very last thing is you want to develop a culture of celebration because what you celebrate actually gets repeated. So make sure, man, you're finding ways for people to celebrate. Make sure, that you're celebrating whenever somebody new comes. Make sure that you're celebrating whenever somebody invites somebody.
Chris Highfill:Make sure you celebrate, when somebody starts giving for the first time. You don't have to make, like, a, like, a public thing. Right? But, like, find ways to celebrate that, like, even with a personal note. Hey.
Chris Highfill:Thanks for giving to our launch team. Celebrate it because what you celebrate gets repeated. Celebrate at baptisms. I mean, I think it's a powerful thing as a launch team to baptize before you even start public worship services. Before you have a grand opening, you ought to be baptizing people that are coming like that are joining your launch team that have never taken that step.
Chris Highfill:And that is, friend, that's a celebration because there was a party in heaven, when those people took a next step of meeting, knowing, and following Jesus. And you should try to replicate that same kind of party through baptism. And so there's lots of opportunities here with your launch team. Just don't make it boring. Alright?
Chris Highfill:Those are the top 10 things that you can do, to help make launch team an awesome experience for people, and to ensure that your launch team will outgrow you. Alright? And so it's important as a leader, that you're creating that kind of a culture, that you're creating that kind of environment. And I can't wait to hear the stories, that from you, about what you did with your launch team. And so, I wanna say thank you so much for watching today.
Chris Highfill:You're awesome. We believe in you, and we know that you're gonna be able to do this. It's gonna be an awesome thing. Says a lot about your leadership that you're carving out time to learn how to be a better leader and how to be a better church planter. Well, that'll do it for today.
Chris Highfill:Thank you so much for watching whether you watch it on YouTube or on our podcast. Man, amazing stuff. Way to be a learner. If you have more topics that you'd like for us to cover, you can go head on over to our website at churchplantersask.com. You can submit questions there.
Chris Highfill:Until next time, keep asking those questions.