Passion for Planting Churches

Project Manager for Passion for Planting. 

Most people, especially my friends from Salinas, California, think I’m in the agricultural engineering business! The term church planting is completely familiar to those of us that are devoted to supporting new churches, but not the most common term in the public sector. Perhaps this additional sentence helps:

We provide resources, tools and support for people planting churches.

Still, the concept of planting a church is foreign to most people, but it’s a great conversation starter. Here’s my elevator pitch:

Passion for Planting was formed in 2002 as a ministry of  New Life Christian Church. P4P has helped over 100 churches get started with the idea that they would go and start other churches. We assist those who are called to start new churches in several ways ranging from education and training to web-based resources and tools to working alongside church planters as their project manager.

• PlanterApp walks potential church planters through a phased application process where applicants are guided through steps required for affiliating with a church planting organization.
• PlanterPlan provides a detailed step-by-step guide for managing a new church start from inception to launch.  We help prepare church planters by offering training through our
• PlanterPrep program (in-residence and distance learning).
• PlanterAssist provides links to tons of free resources available to our frequent visitors.
• PlanterJobs is scheduled for release with Exponential West (Oct 5-8, 2015). This provides a job board targeted at church planters, planting organizations and all the support positions.

Our goal is to help those called to plant churches have the greatest opportunity for success. The fields are ripe, the workers are few and those who answer the call often need help — that’s where we come in.

New Life Christian Church was planted as a new church dedicated to planting new churches, but they are an important community resource as well. The church doesn’t look like an ordinary church because it is not an ordinary church.  So often we think of church as a building, even though we know that word church is really meant to point to a collection of believers. You might be surprised to learn that New Life operates a huge community center called nZone. Complete with indoor soccer fields, sports courts and even a fitness club, New Life holds weekly services here while daily serving the community’s need for recreation and fitness.  In addition, New Life Christian Church is committed to supporting the community through Passion for Community, yet another organization created by those who are part of this vibrant, life-changing church community.

The passion for planting churches is all part of a larger movement in this country, even throughout the world. One significant organization that supports this movement is Exponential.

Exponential seeks to come alongside and serve church planters and the organizations they are affiliated with. We seek to impact church planting by accelerating the multiplication of leading organizations who are planting churches.

Exponential.org hosts two large conferences a year, Exponential East and Exponential West. These are great events to inspire, equip and train church planters, current and future. Checkout their site for details and a wealth of resources.