We believe it is important to provide potential church planters a new kind of missional training through the Tentmaker Group and discussions with the Porterbrook Network (created by the authors of Total Church and the pastors of the Crowded House. They have put together a great 2-year program to equip a person to plant. Porterbrook Curriculum pdf). Our goals would be the following:
Planting a different kind of church
We want to create a different kind of church – one which is gospel-focused in every area of church life and at the same time emphasizes the centrality of the Christian community as the context for Christian life and mission. (source: Total Church Conference documents)
Equipping a different kind of leader
We want to equip missional leaders (eg see: Missional Movements, Plurality of Leadership) who are triperspectival. This means we are equipping them NORMATIVE with gospel applied theology (not just theory/systematics), EXISTENTIAL we are applying the gospel to their lives to bring gospel transformation and SITUATIONAL we are working along side them as they do this in a real church planting context.
Sending for a different type of model
Through the Tentmaker connection, we want planters to leave with 3-5 years of their salary covered and with money to plant. The model we want to send people with isn't to plant a church, but to start city movements that seek to address every area of life with the gospel.
We are excited that so far 7 cities are represented in our Tentmaker Group launch, which is a key component in the plan. The goal is the have this training in every city interested…
