Raising Up Healthy Church Planters

How do we raise up healthy church planters to lead our church plants? Studies have shown that an essential component contributing to a church plant’s long-term success is leading candidates through a vibrant assessment process before any planting work begins.1

For us, Assessment is just a fancy word for communal discernment. Just as the early church discerned in prayer that God was raising up Paul and Barnabas to be sent out (Acts 13), our trained assessment teams prayerfully ask the questions: do we sense that God is calling this candidate to plant a church in our diocese at this time, and do they have the gifts and experience to be set up for success?

The answers to those questions not only supply a reality check for the overly-eager, they can also provide helpful feedback about how a planter could lean into their natural strengths and get support for areas of weakness as they do the work of planting. This feedback provides essential data points for a planter and their coach. It can also be a blessing for candidates to spend a weekend sharing their hearts with discerning and knowledgeable leaders who are there to listen to the Holy Spirit alongside them–whether or not they end up planting a church.

Our diocesan Church Planting leaders have worked hard over several years to build a thorough assessment process (click here to check out our assessment page). Screening conversations with diocesan Church Planting leaders, reflection exercises, questionnaires, and online assessment tools all lead to an in-person assessment event, during which we assess three to four candidates at a time. For the event, we gather an assessment team, made up of experienced church planters and diocesan leaders, to review all the materials and conduct about four hours of individual interviews with each candidate (together with their spouse, if they are married). Other group activities also provide assessors the opportunity to see candidates collaborate with others and speak publicly. 

The team of assessors composes reports for each candidate, recounting their findings to the bishop: their sense of the candidate’s readiness to plant, their strengths, needed areas for growth, and any recommended next steps for personal or ministry development. The bishop and diocesan Church Planting leaders take this information into account as the final decision is made about whether our diocese will partner with a candidate to plant a church. 

For the first time in our diocese’s history, we are planning to host TWO assessment events in 2025 (one in April and a second in November). This is double the amount of candidates we’ve ever assessed in one year! Please pray for our assessment teams as they prayerfully discern, and for God to reveal the people he is raising up to lead our future church plants.