Rev. David Lindrooth – General Church Outreach Director

Rev. David Roth – Pastor and past church-planter, Boulder New Church

Dr. Chuck Ebert –General Church Outreach Committee

Dain Kistner – General Church Budget and Audit Committee

Amy Bruno – South east Austin.

Cedric Williams – North east Austin (Georgetown).

Martha Brown – South Austin.

Jeff Jackson – North west Austin. Likely treasurer, once board of directors is formed.

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Last week we looked at the Initial Leadership Team. Tomorrow: the Peer Network.]

Secondly, it is important for the General Church and for everyone involved to recognize not just that one in three church plants “fails”, but that there are good and bad forms of failure. A “bad” failure results in the General Church and/or one or two major donors continuing to carry the load of financially supporting a static or shrinking church for perpetuity. A “good” failure results in the end of the current project, an objective assessment of what went right and what went wrong, followed swiftly by a new startup incorporating the lessons learned.

It should be recognized, also, that all kinds of error will involve numerous successes with eternal ramifications. Such intermediate outcomes more than justify the risk of loss of startup capital, time, and energy. For example, the “No Exit Café” no longer exists in the natural sense, and yet there are people all over the country who spent time with that church plant and are forever changed by it, including several who are currently members of still existing congregations elsewhere in the body of the General Church. Did that church make mistakes and eventually close its doors? Yes. Did it permanently advance the cause of the kingdom of the Lord God Jesus Christ? Yes.

Theologicaly, we are a process-oriented church that teaches and believes that the Divine plan for humankind in this world involves iterative cycles of long periods of error, assessment, and hard work, regularly alternating with short periods of victory and rest. This means that we should not focus on being error free so much as on properly processing our errors so that we may “fail forward” in a way that allows the Lord to improve us. Western educational systems unfortunately train us to fear failure and error, to always seek to get “the right answer”, or else to not raise our hand at all. Any truly creative process, on the other hand, requires a willingness to experiment, to stumble, to try crazy things now and then, and to jump in with full knowledge that you may well delete the first chapter of that novel or the opening scene of the movie, once the whole thing is complete. We—the General Church of the New Jerusalem, New Way Church, and the Lord’s church worldwide—will be more successful if we are willing to take risks for the sake of bringing new things into the world in the Lord’s name.

That said, how do we know when it is time to stop the current experiment, evaluate, and begin again? By checking key measures at predetermined times. Measuring too soon and too often will stifle the project and crush the spirit of those on the ground in Austin, while measuring too infrequently or too late will not help correct the course if things are good but turning bad. So it is our intention to work with the General Church, the Board of Advisors, and with our other supporters to cooperatively review the status of the church at certain key points leading up to launch, and then afterward on a semianual basis until New Way Church is firmly established as a free standing, self-supporting church with healthy prospects for surviving and thriving for generations to come.

At each of these checkpoint times, key measures will be evaluated against the established plan, budget and expectations. Based on these reality checks, components of the plan will be adjusted in either minor or major ways, as appropriate.

The following are the key checkpoints:

[This is from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Last Friday I talked about Church Daughtering as a key strategy. This post on Contingencies concludes this section of the plan. Next I will publish the start of the People section.]

• The world and the church will mutually benefit from the creation of more New Church societies, and in fact will benefit more from many medium-sized congregations than from just a few large ones;
• Austin, Texas is rich soil for church launching in general and for the New Church in particular;
• The Rev. Glenn McKinley Frazier (a.k.a. “Mac”) is the right person to lead this project;
• Church launching, using the crowd-to-core model of church growth, has advantages over church planting, using the core-to-crowd approach;
• Many church starts jeopardize their ability to be financially independent, and thus their ability to grow, by getting into real estate ownership too soon;
• Effective evangelism involves honest marketing, and effective marketing strives to demonstrate how a brand is the leader in its own unique category, not a latecomer in an already established category; and
• Best practices from the old Christian church growth world are a useful starting point for making projections and setting benchmarks, but it must be remembered that our unique theology may prove to invalidate some of them as we go forward.

The following is additional rationale behind some of these assumptions.

[Excerpted from the New Way Church Launch Plan. Yesterday we wrapped up the first section ("The Point"), and today we begin the second section, "Rationale". Next week we continue with the Rationale section, with "More Societies", "Austin, Texas", "Mac Frazier", "Church Systems", and "Crowd to Core". If this is interesting to you, please post a comment. And if you know someone else who might have something useful to contribute, invite them into the conversation, too!]

1. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one and only God, and the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Heavenly Doctrines are His Word, and the foundation of all we do.
2. We teach truths, and use those truths to help people to live good and useful lives.
3. We love and serve one another, so that together we may love and serve the rest of the Lord’s children.
4. We value marriage between a man and a woman and honor the unique, complimentary nature of each gender.
5. We launch new, healthy congregations that share these values, and we inspire, instruct, support and advise others who are also called to do so.
6. Survival – a healthy congregation has the ability to continue on despite outside events, despite the change of pastor, and despite the change of culture within the group.
7. Growth – a healthy congregation has the intent to grow, in depth of involvement and in numbers involved.
8. Reproduction (Fruitfulness) – a healthy congregation will eventually spawn, sponsor, and/or support additional fledgling congregations and missions, and will become a net producer of future ministers and pastors.
9. Sovereignty (Freedom) – a healthy congregation is not financially beholden to other organizations, denominations, corporations or individual benefactors, although it may associate freely with them.
10. Harmony – a healthy congregation has a focused purpose and unified mission around which there is a small harmony of goals that its membership organizes itself around and clearly agrees to.
11. Service (Use) – a healthy congregation is outward focused and service-oriented, leading to a compassionate dedication to serving not just one another, but those outside the organization.
12. Integrity – a healthy congregation keeps a fearless, unapologetic adherence to the principle teachings of New Christianity regarding the Lord, the Word, and the life of charity.

[This is excerpted from the Launch Plan for New Way Church in Austin, TX. Yesterday we posted "The Point". Tomorrow: "Purpose".]

[As announced yesterday, I am serializing my launch plan for planting a church in Austin. Before getting into the meat of things (tomorrow), we're starting (above) with the 30 second intro to give you some context. Remember to share this with interested New Church folks who want to learn more about church planting. Tomorrow afternoon: "The Point".]

So over the next few weeks, here is a list of topics I’ll be posting on:

• New Way Church: Launch Strategy for Austin, TX
  • The Point
    • Core Values
    • Purpose
    • Mission
    • Our Mantra
    • Aspirational Goal
    • Vision
  • Rationale
    • More Societies
    • Austin, Texas
    • Mac Frazier
    • Church Systems
    • Crowd to Core
    • Street to Kitchen
    • No Premature Real Estate
    • Marketing Philosophy
    • Service Evangelism
    • Ratios
    • Daughtering
    • Contingencies
  • People
    • Target Demographics
    • Initial Leadership Team
    • Advisory Board
    • Peer Network
    • Adopted Parent Congregation(s)
    • Launch Team / Core Group
  • Major Objectives
    • Calendar
  • Finances
    • Funding
    • Budget

As I post on these topics, I’ll link them back to this outline to help you navigate among the sections.

Why am I doing this? To satisfy curiosity. To solicit support. To stimulate thinking. To encourage others to come up with their own, better plans, for their own, better projects. And especially to start a conversation. I am happy to answer questions as they come up. So if you know someone who is interested in the topic of church planting in the New Christian (Swedenborgian) context, invite them in. I’d love to hear from you all.