“I wish I had this when I was planting was my recurring thought during my boot camp experience,” said Tim Zuck, Mentoring Assistant and former church planter. On November 7-9, Pastor Tim Zuck (from Forks Community Church in Forks Township, PA) and Christian Lefko (Church Planting in Residence at New Life BFC, Oley) attended Passion4Planting’s Bootcamp in the Washington DC area. Passion 4 Planting utilizes a hybrid format for its boot camp. There is online self-paced work to complete ahead of the in-person event. The online portion includes six self-study lessons with accompanying exercises.
Church Planting Bootcamp Fundamentals
The boot camp covers the fundamentals of church planting from proven church planters and church leaders through six topics:
- Prayer–Hearing God’s Voice
- Community Profile and Contextualization
- Developing Vision, Mission, and Values
- Discipleship Strategy
- Leadership Development
- Fundraising
Passion 4 Planting provides practical and proven templates for all the exercises so planters can develop strategies for the planting of the church. The online modules not only are informative but include homework assignments in which vision and strategies are articulated. The planter presents his assignments for real-time feedback and refinement.
Experienced Church Planter Feedback
Although Tim Zuck is not currently church planting, he was able to come to the bootcamp with the perspective of having planted two different churches. He still had a few takeaways from his bootcamp experience. “As a former church planter, the training revealed two deficiencies in my church planting experience: lack of clarity and cohesiveness. In hindsight I can now see that my discipleship strategy and leadership development plan lacked clarity and my vision and outreach strategy lacked cohesiveness. I see some remnants of misalignment in my ministry to this day. This is something I will address with my elder board so we can have greater ministry impact for God’s kingdom in our community.”
New Church Planter Feedback
Christian Lefko, Church Planter in Residence at New Life BFC in Oley, is in the beginning stages of his church planting experience. He was able to present his assignments and he was greatly encouraged to receive feedback on the vision he has for the church plant. “This gave me a boost of confidence that I was somewhat on the right track, which I greatly needed! Having other planters in the room was incredibly valuable. I was able to ask questions and hear other perspectives on various issues. It was a good blend of teaching from planters, feedback from planters and prospective planters, and asking questions to the experienced planters.”
PlanterPlan Tool
Both Tim and Christian were excited about the PlanterPlan tool. This online portal organizes and plans out the church planting process. It has over 400 tasks built into it with the ability to add tasks or designate ones as not-applicable. The free version has everything a church planter would need, but bootcamp attenders receive a free upgrade to the premium version which has additional helpful resources.
Based on Tim and Christian’s recommendations, Church Extension is already lining up some of our current and prospective church planters to attend the May bootcamp. We are thankful for Passion 4 Planting and their bootcamp training and their PlanterPlan tool. We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with like-minded ministries who long to see people come to Christ through church planting.
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