Ripe for Harvest

S ESSION 3: L AUNCH AND A SSEMBLE • 325

Charting Your Own Course

The precise nature of your LAUNCH and ASSEMBLE phases of church planting are highly dependent on the kind of church your are planting, who you intend on reaching, and how the church will finally transition, once it is planted. For those who are planting a church within their own culture, and/or will pastor the church once it is planted, the kinds of questions and approaches you have for LAUNCH and ASSEMBLE may be quite different. Knowing that you are launching a church and assembling believers in an assembly that you will lead allows you to think creatively about how you may wish to both do evangelism, follow up new believers, and incorporate new Christians into a publicly declared congregation. A major dimension will be the relative expression of the Church you believe the Spirit wants you to plant. Do you recall the three expressions we referred to in the first Session? Those three expressions were the Small Church , the Community Church , and the Mother Church . Depending on which expression you are striving for, your evangelistic and follow up approaches may differ. Also, if you are part of a team which will stay in the newly formed church, it will be important to discuss what roles you as a team will continue to play once the church has gone public, and announced its birth in the community. Be free and flexible to consider these issues in light of the specific work that God has called you to do, and exercise your freedom in Christ to organize your outreach, design your events, and host your projects in ways consistent with the vision and call your church plant team has been given by the Lord.

Context Values/Vision

Prepare Launch Assemble Nurture Transition Schedule/Charter