Planting Churches Among the City's Poor - Volume 2

P ART II: C HURCH P LANTING T OOLKIT • 205

Davis’s Project Gauntlet The Dirty Dozen Criteria for New Initiatives Rev. Dr. Don L. Davis

1. Does this project solve a tough problem , meet an urgent need , or take advantage of a critical opportunity faced by urban missionaries, churches, and their leaders? How so?

2. Does this project have clear sponsors and stakeholders who are willing to back the project till its completion?

3. Is there some way to fund this ? What is the likelihood of this initiative adding to our intellectual and financial resources for the immediate and remote future (e.g., doubling or tripling our initial investment in the next 10-12 months)? 4. What would be the makeup of our project team? Do they have the wherewithal, the expertise, know-how, and experience to really take on this problem or opportunity? 5. Who would be responsible to create our work breakdown structure for this project, i.e., our definition, tasks, assignments, due dates, etc.? Who will manage this project for us? 6. Are there reasons why we can’t do this , even if we wanted to? In other words, is this project simply beyond our unique ability to handle? Why or why not? 7. Are there other strategic project team members we will need to recruit and underwrite in order to make this happen? Do we have their commitment, and can we fund them? 8. Will this project provide real traction and leverage in our current portfolio as a critical advantage project: i.e., would it greatly advance our traction to multiply churches cross-culturally among the urban poor , increase our ability to encourage and resource urban leaders for the urban church through our satellites , and be underwritten financially ? 9. Even if we had the money and time to accomplish this right now, do compelling reasons exist that could promote this possibility to the top echelon of our priorities ? Given the constraints and limits of our time and money issues now, can we afford to put aside other things to work on this? Why?