Interested in church planting? - Emerging Leadership Initiative

Interested in being a partner church or training site?

Through collaboration, ELI empowers leaders for successful church multiplication

ELI's program is built, very simply, on collaboration. Churches come together to reach a common goal that could not be obtained separately. And each participant mutually "receives from" and "contributes to" the overall purpose of the partnership.

As a partnership of like-minded churches, each of which is passionately committed to church multiplication, ELI partner churches are better able to continually mobilize and equip new leaders to plant new churches because resources of its partners are combined and steadily growing. These newly planted churches, which then become partners in the collaborative effort, find the support needed to participate in starting new churches from the very beginning.

ELI's program consists of five critical functions:

ENVISIONING - (Inspire young leaders with a vision and path for reaching post-moderns) ELI's collaborative recruiting effort inspires young leaders who have the desire to reach their lost and spiritually seeking peers by providing them with a vision and path for planting an innovative church. This coordinated recruiting effort will utilize vision casting through marketing and conferences, relationship networking of partner churches, and publishing to challenge and mobilize an ever-expanding base of potential young leaders toward church planting. This helps eliminate the burden individual churches face in finding the right young leaders to invest in for high-impact. This also provides a clear path toward church planting for young emerging leaders.

EXAMINING - (Carefully examine potential leaders for necessary core competencies) ELI screens and selects individuals for church planting through a careful examination of their gifts, historical and demonstrated leadership skills, entrepreneurial ability, spiritual maturity, proven character, psychological stability, and communication skills. ELI provides an efficient and effective assessment process ensuring that only gifted and called leaders capable of succeeding in a start-up setting enter the ELI program.

EQUIPPING - (Hands-on training in a church currently reaching postmoderns) ELI provides a personalized "residency style" training to insure the leader has the necessary skills and understanding most needed in the first two years of a new church. ELI's "Pastors-in-Training" receive hands-on instruction on-site at a partner Training Church currently reaching the next generation for Christ. This system provides unique training opportunities, such as a "new ministry development practicum" (starting a new ministry within an existing church), in order to prepare for the rigors of a start-up effort. The Pastor-in-Training is incorporated into the Training Church staff and interacts with all areas of the church. Weekly counsel and mentoring, recurring opportunities for preaching and evaluation, core spiritual formation, and exposure to best practices information from "subject experts" are elements of ELI's unique core training.

EMPOWERING - (Help meet the initial funding and start-up needs to insure success) ELI helps meet the initial funding and start-up needs of the Emerging Leader's future church plant by guaranteeing funds for equipment, launch, and operations during the church plant's first one to two years. These funds come in addition to the Pastor's salary, which he is expected to raise before beginning his training. ELI also assists church planters in networking a core group of people who desire to see a next generation church started and multiplied in their community. Our goal is to provide the resources necessary for a healthy, high-impact church launch capable of focusing specifically on unchurched emerging generations in a targeted city.

EXPANDING - (Continue supporting the churches to help them grow and multiply) ELI provides support to help churches stay involved in church planting from the outset. ELI will provide partner churches with cross-training opportunities, ongoing collaboration and shared learning, transfer of knowledge, and relational networks to improve their success. ELI organizes and directs the participation of the new church plants in its collaborative partnership program to ensure multiplication. The goal is to have every church become a Training Church, envisioning and equipping new leaders.

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"Successfully starting a church out of the surrounding culture is the most challenging yet rewarding endeavor you could partner with God to accomplish."

(John Burke, No Perfect People Allowed)

"Unfortunately, most of the churches begun have been doomed from the get-go. Typically they launch with the wrong individual in charge (pastors who are not the catalytic, entrepreneurial leaders required), with an inadequate core group (based on the number and nature of the people involved), an outdated model, and severe undercapitalization."

(George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church)