Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Utilizing the strengths and encouragement of a church-planting coach

No church planter can afford to go it alone. In addition to committed lay leadership (see “No Ordinary People”), more and more of the EFCA’s pioneer planters are relying on the wisdom and come alongside camaraderie of a coach.

EFCA Today interviewed U.S. coach Dave Page and international coaching team Gene and Linda Wilson. Each plays a strategic role in encouraging and equipping EFCA church planters.

Why are coaches/mentors so valuable to church planters?

Dave: Last summer I hiked to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite with my two teenagers. It’s a strenuous, 20-mile hike. Starting a church is a lot like climbing to the top of Half Dome. I wouldn’t recommend doing it alone. You must train and prepare.

I sought out a guide who had hiked Half Dome many times. He shared with me what to wear, what to bring, a strategy for the hike and what to avoid. I felt well prepared, and the experience turned out to be one of the most challenging and exciting adventures I’ve ever embarked on—just like starting a church.

Gene and Linda: You also don’t have to be in full-time ministry to be a coach. We encourage pastors to tithe their time to coach a pastor or a planter. It helps raise up a new generation of workers.

What type of skills/personalities are most valuable to the role of church-planting coach?

Gene: I see five primary qualities: 1) knowledge and track record; 2) caring more about their planters and their work than some corporate agenda; 3) good at listening and gifted in discernment, because good diagnosis is fundamental; 4) skilled at building relationships;5) committed to developing, empowering and releasing others for kingdom fruitfulness.

Tell us your story: What brought each of you to this point and this role?

Dave: When I was 29, I felt God calling me to start a church. My wife, Carrie, and I were newlyweds, and we had no idea what we were doing. I figured I better find someone who had done it successfully. I sought out a coach/mentor.

I met Rick Warren at an evangelism conference. We hit it off, and he said that Saddleback Church would sponsor my new plant. Rick met with me and seven other church planters once a month for two years. Every other month, Carrie and seven other pastors’ wives would meet with Kay Warren in her home.

This training proved invaluable to both Carrie and me. I want to return the lessons I learned to other church planters. Carrie has been a great encouragement to many church planters’ wives and church planters as well, alongside her full-time job assisting in a specialeducation classroom.

After I’d planted three Saddleback churches, God led me to the EFCA . I was hired as director of church planting for EFCA West in 2007. I facilitate coaching networks of 10-12 guys who meet once a month for leadership development, and we have started 19 churches in the last two years.

Gene and Linda: We met in college, fell in love and decided to serve God where there were few churches. After seminary (Trinity Evangelial Divinity School), we went to Quebec to plant churches among French Canadians and served there for 18 years.

We learned a lot the hard way. Which is one reason we have such a heart to come alongside church planters. Then in 2000 we were asked to become church-planting coaches for Latin America. That meant new languages, cultures and a traveling ministry.

Gene developed the church-planting course for the Latin America Training Network and worked with leaders to develop church planting in 10 countries. The key to lasting impact is having Latino coaches in each country. So with the help of many friends and churches, we launched a coaching movement that has produced church-planting coaches and contextualized training. In 2009 Gene became Reach-Global’s church-planting director.

Tell us what’s happening internationally that might surprise our American church planters?

Gene and Linda: We are often surprised by who makes it and who doesn’t. Some theologically trained pastors who have been effective leaders in the United States don’t make it because they don’t have the patience to build relationships and earn a hearing for the gospel in another language and culture.

On the other hand, we have a friend from Florida who, as a single woman, has been an effective pioneer church planter in the macho Venezuelan culture. She is on her eighth church plant. She has learned to find a model Christian home and then work with and through that family and other national believers. This year we are helping her broaden her influence by mentoring women church planters from Peru and Colombia.

What’s one of the most misunderstood aspects of church planting?

Dave: Church planting is so much bigger than any one church. It’s about God’s kingdom. I encourage pastors to enlarge their vision. Ephesians 3:10 tells us that God has chosen the church to make known His manifold wisdom. I believe the planting of new churches is God’s primary strategy and means for reaching a lost world.

If an existing church can’t afford to start a church, then partner with another church or two. A good place to begin is to take a recent church planter in your community out to lunch and encourage him.

Gene and Linda: Many think that church planting is only for theologically trained pastors. Most churches in the Western world are started by these specially trained servants. Yet any fully devoted disciple of Jesus is a candidate to be part of a church-planting team. Pastors are great once the flock is gathered; but initially it takes people who are well connected, who understand how the Average Joe thinks, who love Jesus and love people. A nearby pastor can advise and coach these “lay” witnesses. Later the new church can call its own pastor.

Dave: Planting a church is a lonely endeavor, and having a team helps not only to carry the load but also with the loneliness factor. As I say, church planting is a team sport not an individual sport. Some would say it’s also a contact sport!

The transformation that takes place as a result of the gospel and the planting of new churches is unbelievable. As a friend of mine says, “I am addicted to changed lives.”

Be on the lookout for the December 2010 release of Global Church Planting: Biblical principles and best practices for multiplication, by Gene Wilson and Craig Ott (Baker Publishing Group).