Partnering Up

Parachute church plants have the unique challenge of building a launch team from the ground up.  Mother churches are not in the equation, so teams must be built from relationships made by the church planter in the community.  

It has been exciting to build relationships with people in our community, but it has been equally exciting to build relationships with pastors in our community.  We began praying early on in our journey of church planting that God would open the doors for us to connect with several local churches and the pastors of these churches. We knew that God was going to have to open the doors and pave the way if we were going to build relationships with pastors and ask them the hard question of how we might be able to partner with their church as we worked to plant our church.  

We learned quickly that when you are reaching out to pastors and sharing your needs with them, timing is critical.  There has to be a certain sense of trust that has been established before a partnership can begin between an existing local church and a church plant.  We are currently partnering with two local churches who are geared up to provide us with team members at the beginning of launching our church.  We have also been the recipients of financial support from our local church partnerships.  But this didn't come overnight.   We have spent time getting to know the pastors, their dreams for their churches and their vision for seeing the church community as a whole ignited with a passion for working together.   

Once relationships had been established with local pastors that shared the same vision and passions as we did, it came naturally for us to share our BIG needs for launch team members and volunteers leading up to launch.  We have made it very clear, and continue to make it clear, that we are not looking to steal sheep.  God has not called us to build a church from the overflow of other churches in our community.  He is calling us to reach into uncharted territory and connect with those who are not connected to a body of believers and our partnering churches in this community share this same vision. 


With this in mind, we are asking for our local partnering churches to send us missionaries for a season. This will help us get on our feet and move forward with momentum.  Once this season is over, we will lovingly send these missionaries back to their home churches and praise God for the territory that has been covered because of their partnership with us.  

We've also held to one other very important mindset during this journey of partnering with local churches.   A common question we receive from people in our community is, "Why do we need another church on another corner?"  We have been very careful not to disregard or talk against the work that is already being done by the existing local churches in our community.  We are not the church that "gets it" while all of the other churches are wandering around aimlessly trying to find purpose.  If we slide down the slippery slope of talking about what other churches aren't accomplishing in our community we are walking into the trap of self-promotion.  We want to build the trust of our fellow pastors in this community and that cannot be accomplished if we are focused on building up our church as the answer to people's frustration with their local church community.  

Don't miss the blessing of connecting with local pastors that share the same passions as you do to see the Kingdom of God established in your community.  The pastor of one of our local partnering churches made a statement that we hold on to as we grow our church in this community.  He looked at us across from his desk and said, "A win for the kingdom is a win for the kingdom."  Praise God!  He is exactly right.  It doesn't matter who gets the credit when someone comes into a saving relationship with Christ.  It isn't important what church receives attention when a part of our community is touched by the generosity of a body of believers.  You might have to spend some time looking, but keep looking until you find a pastor in your community that is passionate about seeing a new work begin.   Church planters need connections with the local church community.  Your church will experience momentum when local churches breathe life into the journey of launching a new work in their community.  Ask the tough questions, be real with the pastors you are connecting with and together go  impact your communities!  




Be encouraged today!