This Fall, Think Like a Church Planter

This coming September and upcoming Fall is a huge opportunity for our churches to reach our Ones and engage our 99’s in brand new ways. Due to the pandemic the landscape of our churches has changed. More importantly, the landscape of the communities we serve has changed as well.Most of us fall into one of three groups of people. The first group did their best to remain largely unaffected by the pandemic; in their work and home life, they kept carrying on. The second group of people found their norms were completely reset. Perhaps they worked from home or their kids were home doing school and they were being careful about social interactions. Most families had to create new norms. The last group had lives that were turned completely upside down. They lost jobs or income, some faced addiction or new challenges without healthy coping mechanisms. This is not just our ones in our community, and it is not only our 99’s who faced this. It has affected everyone!Our challenge is to reengage those that have stopped attending or connecting in the church and disciple the new people who are reaching out and looking for help, support, ministry, and community. The key is to focus on the pastoral work of re-engaging our volunteers, re-training or training and not just settling with a simple relational reconnection.In short, an email invitation to church is not going to be sufficient to reengage a lot of our volunteers and disconnected congregation. They need a tap on the shoulder, a personal invite, or a conversation. This means us, personally and individually letting them know how important they are to the work we do and to see what might be holding them back. This is going to require us to think more like a church planter than ever before.It is time to think like a church planter!Church planters work with what they have. Many of us have reduced congregation sizes compared to pre-COVID. We all have people who used to fill roles and bring support to different ministries who are no longer connected.The truth is, most church planters start with much fewer resources than our churches who are coming back from COVID. If we think like a church planter we can focus on the resources and engagement we DO have versus what we are lacking. The average church planter would be ecstatic to have as many people engaged as you do at your church. Thinking we are relaunching or planting our church can help us to see past what we’re missing and capitalize on what is right in front of us - there is so much opportunity!Working with the people who are engaged right now is that kind of strategy. Of course, It will be beneficial to reengage those who are disconnected, but as of today -as of right now- our church is made up of the people who are here! Today’s resources and today’s people are where we start.Church planters look for inroads and wins in the community too. Brainstorm with your team or look and see what is in your idea drawer for helping to meet the needs of those who are struggling in your community. Ideas that are not dependent on lots of resources, but are high on impact are the kind of ‘gold mine’ ideas that church planters take advantage of.Food scarcity can be a really big need in many of our communities. Using a church planter mindset, Mission Ventura started a food drive. Not a food drive in the classic sense, where you get people in the church to bring food, but investing into getting the whole community to be involved in meeting the needs of others.In reality, there are many needs in our communities and many in our church who are struggling to connect the way they used to. Church planters look for short-term wins which turn into long-term partnerships. They adjust quickly to changing needs and are ready to hit the ground in one-on-one ministry as needed.In each of our churches, we have ways we used to do ministry before COVID-19 hit us. For many of us, those ministries were built on systems and people that have been so greatly affected by the pandemic they just can’t look the same anymore. Reinvention is a necessity.As we put on the mindset of a church planter and start asking, “What does it look like for us to be ‘on mission’ in our community during this new upcoming season?” We will find those gold-mine opportunities to begin building or rebuilding our church.We might not look exactly like as we did in 2019, but we can get better at reaching the One’s in our community and helping them get to know Jesus, us, and others like never before.