On Monday, November 8th, Charlie Handren, Sean Cordell, John Pope, Mike Bartlett and Cleon Engel travelled to Atlanta to spend a day with the Regional Church Planting Network which meets the first Tuesday of the month with the exception of July and December. Our purpose of the trip was to observe first hand the actual operation of a regional network. Just to be a part of the meeting (7am - noon) was an invaluable experience to see how community, coaching, training and prayer played out during the meeting.
The network is 6 years old. They are a daughter of GCA's model and Steve Childers coached Tom Wood for the first two years. Steve led them in their Vision Summit, Renewal Summit and their Coaching Summit. He provided them with all monthly training materials. They report that GCA's materials are foundational to a sound church planting movement. They have 16 church planters involved in their network. All planters are coached twice a month, once in the church planting network meeting and once during the month, primarily face to face, but some have to meet by phone. Training events are provided for men to serve in the coaching role.
Some of the highlights that we gleaned from our visit:
1. A TCT network leader/coordinator who is focused must be appointed
2. A qualified consultant will jump start our network
3. Childers was highly recommended by the leadership in Atlanta
More information and updates will be coming. Please pray with us as Kenny drafts a proposal to be presented to the BBC elder board the end of this month.
