Jeff Heidkamp: Early on in a church plant, sometimes the church planter has desires to quit because of the difficulties and the pressures. Spiritual warfare plays a part too. Is that fairly common?
Steve Nicholson: Well, it’s not just church planters. It’s common for pastors in general, because it’s hard to see your rewards. They are usually distant and seem more ethereal.

JH: Maybe the tension is that there are times when we look at a pastor and think, “You should really consider stopping. You know you’ve tried really hard.” But we also can often feel that people should press on. So what are some of the signs that it really is a legitimate time to quit and not just the normal temptation that comes with the difficulty of the early years?
SN: We certainly want to help somebody quit before they more or less ruin themselves pounding their head against the wall. By then they would be no good to anyone. But if they still have the capacity to continue, you don’t want them to become too critical too early.  A good criterion is whether you can still articulate a compelling vision. Do you have it in you? It’s difficult to recover from the inability to articulate vision. Pure survival is not a very good witness.You have to be able to say, “Why are we doing this, and why is it worth doing?” If you can’t do that in a compelling way anymore, that’s an indicator that maybe you can’t go on. But Mondays don’t count as an indicator!

Quitting can almost be a fantasy that’s like a coping mechanism.

JH: [Laughter] Or February in the Midwest.
SN: Right. [Laughs] Another thing I often ask is, “Are people coming, and are they sticking with the church?” Of course, not everyone has to stay. But if nobody’s visiting, or they take one look and run away, that’s probably a bad sign.
Now, if people are coming and looking, and some of them stay, then that means there is still potential there.
Another huge thing is that sometimes it is the condition of the planter that has to be considered, not necessarily the condition of the church. The job is so demanding. Sometimes you might find yourself in a crisis that makes it impossible to click in with the church process. Cancer is an example. If you’re not able to do the job, and it’s not going to turn around soon, then you need to quit.

JH: What do you do then? Do you try to turn it over to somebody?
SN: Exactly. Many times when people get to the point of quitting, they don’t talk to anybody about it. That’s the first mistake. The second mistake is, if they quit, they usually just close the church and don’t give us a shot at saving it.
If there’s enough good that has been built up, the church can actually probably be saved by somebody else. So if someone is wondering, “Should I quit?” the first thing to do is to either talk to your coach or your APCL [Area Pastoral Care Leader].
Secondly, if after talking to them, you still feel like you should quit, then the next question is whether you can help develop a strategy to get someone in to take the church from that point. Work with your coach and APCL before you go and make announcements to the church.

JH: Quitting can almost be a fantasy that’s like a coping mechanism. You might think about it, but it’s wise not to just go do it. It won’t work the way you think.
SN: That’s right.

A young mother, who lives near us, attended an Alpha course at our church. Her faith came alive and she started to come on Sundays. She was desperate to get her husband along to the next course, or the next one, or the one after that. But he was having none of it. Then she saw that we run a Parenting Children Course for parents with children up to ten years old, so she talked to him about whether they might go along together. He wanted to be the best father he could be for their two children, so he agreed. The course made a profound impact on him. He recognised for the first time that he was in danger of imitating his own father, who had always put work before the family. He still felt hurt by the memories. He reorganised his working life so that they could spend time together as a family. The positive effect on their children was immediate.

The course made a profound impact on him.

They then did The Marriage Course and for the first time started to pray together as a couple. The next thing we heard was that this husband was on an Alpha course. He gave his life to Christ and they started to come to church as a family.

This pattern of people going from one course to another before starting to come to a Sunday service is a story we have heard repeated over and over again from churches who are seeking to reach out to the practical ‘felt’ needs of people in their local community.

Six out of ten young adults put looking after family as the most important moral issue for them

A survey commissioned by the BBC for the recent Re:Think festival on religion and ethics suggested that nearly six out of ten young adults put looking after family as the most important moral issue for them, compared with fewer than one in 20 choosing religious faith. [Report by Ruth Gledhill, the Times page 25 on 14.9.12] The church has much to say about ‘looking after family’ and the Relationship Central courses for couples and parents aim to tap into this interest and this need.

Thousands of couples have done The Marriage Preparation Course and The Marriage Course at Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), where they originated, and at many other churches around the UK. The courses are suitable for any couple, however long or short a time they have been together, whether they have a great relationship and want to invest for the future or they are struggling, and whether or not they are churchgoers. Similarly The Parenting Children and The Parenting Teenagers (for those parenting eleven to eighteen-year-olds) courses are for all parents whether they are parenting as a couple or on their own.

Tools for maintaining or mending relationships within the family.

All the courses, while based on Christian principles for building a strong family life, are very practical. They give the tools for maintaining or mending relationships within the family.

The courses are easy to run. They can be held in homes or other locations and involve a combination of talks and discussion. On The Marriage and Marriage Preparation Courses these discussions are entirely private between the couple. On The Parenting Courses they take place in small groups with other parents at a similar stage of family life. The talks can be played on DVD or given live. The role of the hosts is to create a great atmosphere that is welcoming and that helps the guests to feel relaxed and able to open up in discussion.

To find out more about any of the Relationship Central courses, visit the website relationshipcentral.org

When: Saturday 22nd June 2013, 10am – 4pm

Where: Skainos Centre, Belfast

Cost: £8 (lunch included)

Speakers: Rachel Turner & Katie Rogers

I wanted to write some thoughts about a conundrum many church planters face. It is the issue that arises when they find that they are being pulled by their own gifts or by members of their team or even by the reporting systems of their own church movement towards traditional structures of “doing church” while they still recognise that their context is crying out for innovation and exploration in mission. How do you balance these things? How do you know when it is time to “shift tracks?” And is there a model that marries the two seemingly incompatible priorities?

Most Christians do not know how to church plant.

One thing I have found in my watching of church planters and having tried it three times is that most Christians do not know how to church plant. They know how to go to church. This inevitably results in huge pressure for the planters who are engaged with the context to come up with a missional strategy that truly impacts an area and not just suck transfer growth into their “more interesting show.” This is a really difficult pressure to resist.

But likewise I have seen planters who have worked previously on church staff teams who have over years of such work sharpened their skill set for the delivery of “church programmes” and not incarnational missional living. These planters so often look to quickly move to a strategy that allows them to preach asap and this inevitably results in moving to services and programmes before the culture of that area has been penetrated. This too can shipwreck a plant.

So what is the balance?

First, we need to go back and recognise anew some cultural markers. We are not in the mainstream of culture any longer. Church is not on the menu for over 90% of our compatriots. Look at that number. 90%! This is a strategic anomaly that must be considered. This means that we are not even a post-Christian culture any longer. We have turned the corner into a pre-Christian reality. This provides us with an imperative to innovate and learn how to do incarnational ministry in our context in the power of the Kingdom. I wouldn’t presume to suggest what that is for your context, however I have seen many many different options. Know your city. Know your interests. Know the bondages of your city. I have seen community choirs, wine tasting, charity gigs, sports teams, For-profit businesses, coffee shops, charities dedicated to serving the disadvantaged etc… all used as means to penetrate pre-Christian cultures and build spiritual and real connections that the Kingdom can travel across. This is a non-negotiable.

Everything gets filtered thought 1000 years of tradition.

Yet, there is an established church in the UK and a strong, lingering cultural memory back to the days of Christendom where – as if in a dream – Christianity was the accepted norm. So certain things of which they have no real knowledge are yet indicators of legitimacy versus cult-like opportunists. I would add to this list a Sunday service, a Church building & even titles. They aren’t the slightest bit interested but they look for it before they would come within a mile. One mentor of whom I was seeking advice before moving to the UK told me that after 20 years of ministry here, “innovation is not a natural good in the UK like north America. Everything gets filtered thought 1000 years of tradition.” Never have truer words been said.

We are in the process of adding videos for each Main Session, if the video you require is currently not available please either check back soon or follow us on Facebook or Twitter to hear as these become available.

With years of experience and a keen eye for detail, Chris Parsons shares his insights into how to successfully plan a church year.

Including:

:: Preaching Rotas

:: Calendars

:: Terms / Days

:: Check lists

:: A template calendar

:: A Preaching Rota from West Suffolk Vineyard

Download all of these elements from this zipped file.