The first year of our church planting strategic focus, to plant 750 churches in the next 10 years, was, believe it or not, a big success! Our overall strategy continues to be to envision, equip and resource our local Vineyard churches to multiply in healthy and sustainable ways as we multiply churches in every part of our country.
Thank you to everyone who made commitments to multiply churches, to send out church planters, to encouraged leaders in your community to begin praying about church planting, and to promote this initiative in your area and region. Together we are going to Multiply Vineyard.
Here are a few of our 2013 accomplishments:
- We released 29 new Vineyard church plants. We just barely missed our goal of 30 plants, but we did pretty good! This is nearly double what we planted in either of the previous couple of years. Way to go Vineyard!
- We had quite a few people go through discernment process, which includes several different church planting assessments. Nationally we had 89 take our initial online assessment, 20 people experience our loving pastoral interviews, and over the past two years we’ve had 75 folks go through the Campion, Barrows & Assoc., assessments. We currently have nearly 150 involved in some portion of our overall discernment process from around the country. Read more about the discernment process.
- We now have 45 coaches involved in our training and coaching process. Our goal is to provide a great coach to every church planter for the first two-years of this plant. If you are interested in receiving coach training, please contact us at office@vineyardchurchplanting.
com - 171 of our already existing Vineyard churches are involved in the Multiply Vineyard initiative. And 141 of our churches have made a commitment to planting at least one church over the 10 years.
- We currently have 7 new potential planters who are working through the release process!
Additionally we are:
- Developing a standard set of legal documents for Vineyard church plants including by-laws, articles of incorporation and etc.
- And we are just beginning to work with a couple organizations to help our planters get set up consistently and appropriately for tax purposes.
We Have Four Partnerships Functioning
A church planting partnership consists of churches working together to accomplish what none of them could do alone. We believe that every single Vineyard church can be a parent of new churches as well as a partner—participating with a group of churches that voluntarily come together and choose a particular target area to focus in. No church is expected to go it alone!
We currently have four functioning partnerships within the US—La Viña, New York City, the Denver metro area, and Small Town USA. These three partnerships are inviting other like-minded churches to participate with them as they seek to plant new churches in their specific geographic and demographic areas. The partnership leaders receive regular training, coaching and ongoing support as they pursue their goals. Check here for resources and more info.
Multisite Churches
We have recruited two new leaders to the overall team who each have extensive experience in establishing and leading multisite churches—Jim Plank from Champaign/Urbana, IL, and Corey Garris from Denver, CO. These two, and the team they are developing, are making themselves available for coaching, consultation and offering conferences to help interested Vineyard churches multiply with this model. Check here for resources and more info.
Training
We visualize church planting training happening at the local, regional, and national levels simultaneously. In close partnership with Vineyard Institute, we are developing a hands-on training program that any local church could implement to help develop a church planter in the areas of theological education, life formation and practical ministry experience. Additionally we are developing modules aimed a specific church planting issues which will be taught and facilitated by experienced church planters from around the country. And lastly we are planning training where our church planters will have the opportunity to interact with some of the best-of-the-best that Vineyard leadership has to offer. Stay tuned, as this is a big focus for the upcoming year.
Here are is the official list of new planters released in 2013:
- Rob & Tara Wallace – South Bend, IN
- Jason & Amber Verduzco – Spokane, WA
- Jeff & Diane Wright – Fredricksburg, VA
- Andy & Janna Rainey – Blue Ash, OH
- Dale & Wendy McMillian – Frisco TX
- Shari & Rick Luebbert – Elko New Market, MN
- Bill & Ali Maciunski – Neptune, NJ
- Michael & Jan Davis – San Mateo, CA
- Cathy Chester – Wilmington, NC
- Colin & Lisa Tuggle – Adirondack Mountains, NY
- Tom & Sharie Banbury – Phoenix, AZ
- Josh & Kara Goeke – Philadelphia, PA
- Cameron & Sharla Erlandson – Kansas City, KS
- Mark & Karen Baxter – Ramona, CA
- Daniel & Vanessa Jergensen – Durango, CO
- James & Jinhee Choung – Torrance, CA
- Amos & Alison Groenendyk – Grand Rapids, MI
- Charles & Dianna Bello – Oklahoma City, OK
- Akwasi Boakye – Columbus, OH
- Bill & Summer McElhaney – Valparaiso, IN
- David & Rebecca Anderson – Milwaukee, WI
- Vince Brackett & Kyle Hanawalt- Chicago, IL
- Ben Ganson – Rock Hill, SC
- Timothy & Penny Campbell – Mansfield, OH
- George Seismore – Mapleton, OR
- Robert Friel – The Dalles, OR
- Michael Clancey – Englewood, CO
- Steven Hamilton – Baltimore, MD
- Jeff & Dawn Ward, Florence, CO
Let the celebrations begin!
