We’d like to introduce what we’ve identified as the four necessary components to planting a healthy Vineyard church. We believe church planting is the result of our local churches being healthy and wanting to bring the reality of the kingdom of God to more communities. These components are designed to help facilitate just that: providing the encouragement, accountability, resources, training and freedom necessary to build the foundations for a successful church plant.
Download the Four Components to Planting a Healthy Vineyard Church
While there is much more to be said about each of these components, here is a brief overview:
Get to know the Vineyard. There is just no way to plant a healthy Vineyard church without really getting to know what a Vineyard church is really all about. As sending pastors we must help our potential planters get involved in our churches, study and embrace our theology, embody our values and live out the reality of our distinctives.
Let the Vineyard get to know you. Whenever someone comes to us wanting to explore or pursue a call to ministry, we want to come alongside them, helping to discern exactly where God might be leading them. So we have developed a relational discernment process—four conversations of deepening discernment to help our potential planters get started in the right direction. Here is where you can learn more about this discernment process.
Get some training. Appropriate training is vital to the success of a new church plant and we are encouraging several different types of training for the potential planter. We want our planters to get the necessary training while staying deeply connected and intimately involved in their local churches. To help accomplish this we are providing templates a sending church could use to train planters in 1-3 years. We are also offering weekend intensives where the planter will travel and learn with others from some of our best planters and trainers. Check out our events page to see the next training opportunities.
Get connected and released. Since we are a relationally based movement of churches, it is vitally important that our new planters get connected to the larger movement by building relationship with our Area Pastors (AP’s), Regional Leaders (RL’s), and our national leadership. Attending conferences and regional and area meetings are a vital part of this relationship building process. And our official Release Form also helps to insure communication throughout the movement when a new church is released.
As you can see, this is not four steps that need to be accomplished in one specific order, rather these are four components necessary to planting a healthy church. We desire to give our local church room for lots of freedom and creativity as together we reproduce our churches. Please feel free to visit our websites for much more information, as well as ask us any questions you may have along the way!
