Our Associate Director, Rich Fulton, shares about how we support our church planting team members.
What is church planting?
The exciting work of church planting includes evangelism, discipleship, preaching, connecting to the neighborhoods and making new friends. It includes building a team, sharing vision, and speaking with partner churches. We often refer to this as "vine work."
However the vine work needs a trellis. Before a church gets planted there will be plenty of trellis building too, even for a small church. At NEU, we care that the foundation will sustain a church for many years. So our staff provides services to our planters and team members that are critical for a healthy church.
How does NEU support church planters?
- Building a healthy and sustainable financial support structure that lasts for years and decades
- Helping our new ministry staff transition to their new location
- Assistance with finding housing
- A relocation package to help to ease the transition (doctors, dentists, shopping, schools, recreation, etc.)
- Helping to find a location for the church
- Negotiating a lease
- Registering with the Secretary of State as a church (with our attorney)
- Helping with legal forms
- Establishing a bank account
- Obtaining insurance
- Helping to supply the church with material needs
- Creating systems for accounting and handling of money
Even after the church has constituted and is growing, we continue to serve the church by helping the team maintain financial support, find patterns of rest and renewal, stay connected with our NEU family through retreats, family fun days, spiritual renewal events and more.
Healthy inner city churches require healthy trellises. Our desire is to help plant teams establish as much trellis as is necessary for long-term sustainability.
