introduction

The following seven steps are used to guide our church planting in the US. They are our way to relationally connect planters to the pastors and overseers around them, to provide coaches to resource them, and to communicate with all parties as we work to intentionally send and receive our new pastors into the areas where they intend to plant.

The Vineyard, a Community of Churches uses the following terms for the pastors
who oversee each of our eight regions in the United States:

♦ Regional Overseer(RO): The RO organizes all task force members to run the
region they oversee.
♦ Area Pastoral Care Leader (APCL): The APCL meets geographically with six to
twelve existing Vineyard churches to develop deeper relationships and resource
those churches.
♦ Church Planting Coordinators(CPC): The CPC works with local churches and planters to co-ordinate the process in their area .
♦ We also have various taskforce leaders in youth, children's ministry, missions partnerships, worship, Holy Spirit and women.

the seven step process

1. The sending pastor and potential church planter contact the church planting coordinator in the area where they plan to start the new church.
The Church Planting Coordinator (CPC) advises potential church planters on The Seven Step Process. The CPC shows how to fill out the paper work for the V-USA Church Planting Application and The Pastoral Recommendation Forms. In some regions, the Regional Overseers may want to meet with any new planter first. This is a region-by-region decision, so be sure you check with your CPC and see what the expectation is in the region in which you will plant. The CPC will also have the planter meet the Area Pastoral Care Leader (APCL) to get acquainted, if they are not, as part of the process of entry and to ensure good communication.

The sending church and Church Planting Coordinator (CPC) along with Area
Pastoral Care Leader (APCL) will devise a plan to introduce the planter to the closest Vineyard churches at the proper time. We do this to avoid having church planters showing up unannounced at an APC meeting because no one knew they were coming. Our desire is that by the time the planter attends the area pastoral meeting some introductions have been made and they are welcomed into the area properly.

The planter will finish the steps outlined below with the Church Planting Coordinator and the church planting coach they select or are given. The CPC will inform the Regional Overseer (RO) of the new churches entering the region. As a regional team, they will discuss any logistics between the churches and officially welcome the new planter at their regional meetings.

If a planter is coming from outside the region, the planter and sending church should first contact the Regional Overseer’s office in the part of the country they are planting in and also the church planting team leader for that region. The RO will make the referral to the appropriate people to complete the following steps. Please do not wait until you are further down the road than this. If you are considering this possibility at all, it is very important that you spend time with these regional leaders at the beginning, not the end, of your process.

2. Fill out the church planting application and sending pastor's recommen-dation form.
The two forms mentioned above are located on the follow web site:
www.vineyardusa.org/ministries/planting.aspx. The planter needs to send The

V-USA Church PlantingApplication in to the CPC (mailing addresses are also found on this web page). We also ask that the planter’s spouse, if you are married, fill out a separate copy of the application, because we believe that their perspective on the plant is very important to hear, regardless of how active or behind-the-scenes they think their role will be. The planter is also responsible to ask their sending pastor to send in his Pastor’s Recommendation Form. Your future CPC will read the forms and will send copies on to the RO. Assuming all is well, your future CPC will arrange for you to go through a half-day assessment process for potential church planters, having you fill out a Pre-Interview Questionnaire that will be sent in before the day of assessment. This form can also be found on the church planting web page.

3. Fill out the pre-interview worksheet and attend a half-day assessment for ministry placement.
We are finding the earlier we do assessment, the better we can fine-tune mentoring assignments to expedite the process. The Profile of a Potential Church Planter can be a helpful tool to the sending church and planter in focusing your ministry training prior to assessment. Look for this on the above-cited web page. It is preferable to select a coach (your CPC can help with this if there is not an obvious person you have in mind) and have them in the assessment meeting when possible. The objective of an assessment is to determine that some baseline elements necessary in planting a church are present in the planter. It is a collective evaluation and exploration of the planter’s story, natural talents, spiritual gifts, and God-given vision to encourage you in the direction to which God has called you. A second day will be selected to debrief the assessment write-up with the couple and coach.

4. Prepare your exit plan with your sending pastor and area coach.
Once you have the write-up in-hand, the next step is to review the write-up with the sending pastor. At this time, you develop a schedule and plan with your pastor, your CPC, and the coach. Sending a pastor out involves many decisions that affect the health of the mother church as well as the plant. Ordination, financing, and team, core group, and primary group will potentially come into play in this stage.

5. Your church planting coach begins meeting with you and giving mentoring assignements.
Once you've been through the assessment and your sending pastor and CPC
agree on the timing to begin planting the church, the planter should purchase
The ChurchPlanter’s Tool Kit by ChurchSmart (www.churchsmart.com/store), and Steve Nicholson’s Coaching Manual from the Vineyard USA website church planting page (see address above).

6. Complete your two-year ministry plan.
Three to six months before putting the wheels into motion, the church planter needs to create and fine-tune with the coach a plan you will work off of for the next eighteen months or so, covering these points:

♦ A chosen geographic location
♦ A clear understanding of the demographic target group (the people you want to
reach)
♦ A clear and specific vision for your church
♦ The kinds of values and priorities which you see as fulfilling that vision
♦ An approach to recruiting a team who will help you plant
♦ A plan for building your team, core group, and primary group
♦ A plan by which to finance the planter
♦ Clear and measurable strategies and programs to reach that target group
♦ Proposals for gathering and evangelizing events
♦ A basic small groups strategy
♦ A target date for having a public Sunday worship service

To see sample two-year plans from a couple of recent vineyard church
plants, see www.vineyardusa.org/churchplantingresources.

7. The planter sends in the signed release form.
Once these steps are completed, the CPC will send The Church Planting Release Form (http://www.vineyardusa.org/ministries/release_form.pdf) to the planter. We do not want anything to stand in the way of you becoming officially recognized. This involves getting into the V-USA database, being in the directory and on the website, as well as receiving the launching money set aside for you by Vineyard USA, and the administrative manual on by-laws and non-profit incorporation titled Building Your Church from the Ground Up: The Corporate Side.

It is the planter’s responsibility to see to it that The Church Planting Release Form is signed and then sent in to the national Vineyard offices in Houston (the mailing address is noted on the form itself). The following signatures are required to enhance our communication through our Movement: Your sending pastor, Area Pastoral Care Leader (APCL), Church Planting Coordinator (CPC) Coach, Regional Overseer (RO) and the National Director. Please keep a copy of your signed form, to guard against lost mail. Note: If you are planting cross-region, it is the receiving APCL and CPC and RO in the region to which you are going who need to sign the form, not the ones for the region from which you are being sent.

You should receive a packet from the Vineyard USA within 10-14 days. Here is what's currently in the packet we send out:

♦ Growing Church from the Ground Up Binder
♦ 2 V-USA Directories
♦ Vineyard Bible Institute bookmark
♦ 1 Statement of Faith
♦ 1 Discipline Handbook
♦ 1 Theological and Philosophical Statement of Faith
♦ VLI brochure
♦ Old issues of VOV (Voice of the Vineyard) - if available
♦ Latest issue of Cutting Edge
♦ Vineyard Resource CD

Plus your check and a trademark agreement form on the name Vineyard. Upon signing and returning this form, you are permitted to hang the Vineyard name on your church.

Click here to link to the printable PDF form on the Vineyad USA web site.