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Values, Vision & Mission
The SBTC Church Planting Team assumes and is subsumed by the Mission Statement and Core Values of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
Therefore:
The SBTC Church Planting Team Values
- New churches planted in theological agreement.
- The overall well-being of planters and partners.
- Rapid expansion of the Kingdom.
- Synergizing with our partners.
- Contextualizing church planting efforts.
- Taking risks to accomplish the Great Commission.
- Partnering in cooperative giving and going.
We also see a day in Texas when every person can hear the gospel in a way he or she can understand it and have the opportunity to respond in faith. This will happen when -
- A church planting movement is penetrating lostness.
- Unreached people groups are identified, understood, and churched through appropriate strategies.
- Those who have a heart for a church planting movement are praying and partnering with powerful synergy.
- Believers are taking entrepreneurial risks in faith to expand the Kingdom.
- Those with apostolic church planting gifts are equipped and deployed throughout the state.
- Church planters have healthy lives, families, and churches.
- We are part of something great that is populating heaven!
Our mission is to
- Discover and develop planters and partners who share our values and vision.
Therefore, our overarching objectives are to
- Engineer a vision for multiple church planting movements in Texas.
- Develop a network with our church planting partners for cooperative learning, equipping, coaching, and support.
- Connect our church planting partners with the best contextualized resources available.
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Three-fold Foundational Objectives
I. Visioneering – understanding present reality, imagining the future, then joining God where he is at work in order to shape the future
- We will take the lead in engineering a church planting vision for Texas.
- We will take the lead in assisting churches, associations, and networks in shaping their vision and strategies for church planting in their contexts.
- We will take the lead in casting a vision for reaching the dynamic numbers of ethnolinguistic people groups and population segments in Texas.
- We will take the lead in casting a vision for discovering and developing creative missional approaches to church planting, encompassing multiple models and strategies.
- We will take the lead in casting a vision for the mobilization of churches to accomplish an Acts 1:8 church planting strategy that will lead to church planting movements in Texas and around the world.
II. Networking – creating synergy by connecting and coaching learners and doers
- We will take the lead in expanding the SBTC network of planters and partner coaches for effective planter selection and development.
- We will take the lead in connecting our church planting partners (planters, churches, associations, and networks) with each other for church planting synergy.
- We will take the lead in connecting those of like mind, affinity, and passion with each other for learning and encouragement.
- We will take the lead in creating learning environments and networking opportunities where our church planting partners can connect to the best missional churches, coaches, and equippers for increased knowledge and productivity.
- We will take the lead in connecting our church planting partners to their SBC missions partners through cooperative missions giving and going.
III. Resourcing – knowledge and materials for getting the job done together
- We will take the lead in delivering to our partners the information they need to shape their vision and develop their strategies.
- We will take the lead in delivering to our partners the best church planting training, connections, materials, and resources available.
- We will take the lead in developing new funding models and options, and delivering contextualized funding resources for church planting.
- We will take the lead in delivering to our partners the relationships, time, accountability, and encouragement needed for healthy and multiplying church planting.
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SBTC Church Planting Strategies
I. Visioneering:
- Consistently cast the vision for church planting in Texas. Focus on innovative strategies, diverse models, and the multitude of unreached people groups.
- Consistently communicate with all our partners about our church planting vision, current strategic emphases, training, and resources. Develop segmented communication approaches as needed for DOMs, churches, and planters.
- Research and stay updated on the changing demographics of Texas. Incorporate this information into visioneering and communication strategies.
II. Networking:
- Recruit, train, and mobilize Missionary Church Planters focusing on Unreached People Groups.
- Recruitment, training, and mobilization of People Group Champion Project churches focusing on Unreached People Groups.
- Build better relationships and partnerships with churches and associations by providing and connecting to coaching, strategy consultation, the development of planting processes, and the delivery contextual training and materials.
- Encourage and facilitate the development of locally owned and operated church planting systems and processes through strategy consultation, development of planter selection processes, coaching, catalytic funding, and the delivery of training and materials.
- Networks of multiplying churches that lead out in strategic planting.
- Regional and affinity planter networks/learning communities for equipping, peer learning, and fellowship.
- Contextualized system and process networks (assessors, trainers, coaches) for diverse models and people groups.
- Ongoing development of key church planting leaders (planters and church planting churches) through learning and connecting opportunities.
III. Resourcing:
- Lead out in the development of alternative models of funding.
- Identify and, where needed, develop contextualized materials and resources, both printed and web-based.
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Strategic Church Planting Emphases, 2008-2010
Based on the changing demographics of Texas, the gaps in processes, systems, and resources, and the increasing need for significant church planting partners, the following five areas must be the growing edge of our church planting emphases. This does not mean we ignore other planting opportunities; however, our structure, our time, our energy, and the bulk of our attention and resources, should focus on these areas. They reflect the strategic opportunities, the critical challenges, and the desperate needs of the day. These are also the “gap” areas. That is, they are the ones that are the least evangelized or the least developed and with the fewest number of strategic resources. Over the next three years, we must move the full weight of our roles, our goals, and our resource to these strategic emphases.
- Church Planter Selection and Development Process. One of the key ingredients to a successful church plant or strategy, regardless of the model, is the leader. Church planter selection and development will continue to be at the forefront of SBTC’s time and resource investment.
- Implement an online application, assessment, and interactive training process.
- Improve our assessment follow-up and interview process.
- Develop and implement a statewide web based coaching system.
- Develop and implement regular planters’ and wives’ SBTC Orientation.
- Develop ongoing events and processes for improved planter effectiveness overall well being.
- High Impact Strategy. Considering the rapid population growth in most of Texas, and considering that the statistics on church growth, church health, and baptisms are generally discouraging, there is a need to identify strategic locations and top quality planters for high impact church conventional plants. These will be plants led by proven planters who have been through an extraordinary selection process. High expectations and high accountability will be the norm.
- Project will take place in three phases – Borderlands Reach, Metro City Focus, and Mid-City Focus.
- Strategic locations will be selected by partner churches and associations to plant a goal of 10 multiplying (church planting) churches in each phase.
- Planters and their teams will be carefully selected through an extraordinary assessment process.
- Higher funding and higher accountability will be the norm.
- Higher missions giving and missions involvement by the new church will be expected.
- Hispanic church planting, both for the first and the later generations. All demographers agree that the future of Texas is Hispanic. At the same time, the future of Hispanics in Texas is largely English speaking. We must develop more effective recruiting, training, and networking strategies for both these groups.
- Develop a strategy for identifying, recruiting, and training new Hispanic planters using a variety of models and planting strategies.
- Find or develop better contextualized training.
- Catalyze and train for house church movements among the first generation.
- Network and develop later generation Hispanic leaders for fellowship, training, and the recruitment of new planters.
- Ethnic Church Planting. The growth and diversity of ethnolinguistic people groups in Texas is unprecedented. The Asian population is the fastest growing percentage-wise in Texas (and the U.S.). Those peoples that practice Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam are growing at an alarming rate. Islam is projecting by some (Jim Slack of IMB, for instance) to be the dominating religion in the United States in forty years. We must identify and understand these groups and develop numerous church planting strategies to reach them.
- Identify and prioritize people groups to reach.
- Develop strategy to recruit and train churches as cross-cultural People Group Champion Project churches.
- Strategically recruit and train Missionary Church Planters for non-conventional strategies to reach ethnic people groups.
- Continue to recruit and develop ethnic planters for conventional church plants.
- Develop more contextualized processes for assessing and training ethnic planters.
- Recruit and involve more ethnic churches in cross-cultural church planting.
- Texas Missions Initiatives (TxMI). Realizing that many people groups and population segments will not be reached by conventional churches and church planting, we encourage the development of evangelistic ministries and simple congregations to reach these. The TxMI emphasis includes house churches, college churches, lay church planting, multi-housing ministries and congregations, low-income and inner city ministries and congregations, and other non-conventional approaches. Included in the TxMI emphasis is the selection and deployment of Missionary Church Planters – a funded apostolic strategist who does not plant one church, but works within a people group or population segment developing lay planters and a church planting movement. Also included is the People Group Champion Project, which is a church that embraces an unreached people group in its community and commits to leading out in an appropriate evangelistic, ministry, and church planting effort in order to reach them for Christ.
- Develop house church strategies.
- Develop strategic multi-housing ministry and church planting efforts.
- Develop lower income and ministry based strategies.
- Missionary Planter recruitment, training, and deployment.
- People Group Champion Project recruitment, training, and deployment.
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