Outreach North America
Preparing to launch the first public worship service of a new ARPC church plant
Tom and Ann Hawkes Christ Presbyterian Church Fernandina Beach, Florida
ne typical response I get when telling people that we moved to Fernandina Beach to plant a new church is a curious question: How do you plant a church? It is a great question! Most of us understand the idea of starting a Bible Study: you meet people and invite them to your house to study the Bible and pray. But how does a core group Bible Study turn into a worship service? Honestly, - eral things need to happen before a core group can launch a worship service well.
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1. Secure a public worship location. This is probably the most obvious. Often church plants will meet in places like schools, retail spaces, theaters, public auditoriums, or other church buildings. In our case, a realtor in our core group searched and showed us four possible rental locations. After we visited them all we had an easy time picking our top choice. We signed a contract to rent the space, an adult care center, for a good monthly price.
2. Organize the core group into the essential teams needed to conduct worship and lead a church. Of course, we already have a provisional session provided by the presbytery to give us oversight. But there are a number of functional areas that need to be cov- ered. Usually, to conduct public worship well, a church plant will need a greeter and hospitality team, a worship leader and team, a children’s ministry, a set-up team, a preacher and perhaps a backup preacher, and an administrator. Church life is far more than just a worship service, so other teams are helpful:
small group leaders, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, prayer ministry, outreach team, missions team, etc. It is only as new people visit our worship services that we the plane!
3. Worship together in the new location before inviting the public. Whether it is a few or a dozen services, most core groups will want to spend some time worshipping together in their new location before they invite the public to attend.
This helps ensure that your visitors will be greeted, included, and have a great worship time with you. For example, we have been holding what we call pre- view services one or two Sunday nights per month for several months, where the core group and a few friends have been worshipping together.
4. Pick a date to hold your grand opening Sunday.
Once these essential pieces are in place, decide together with your lead- ership when would be a good time to begin public worship services where you live, considering the many local and community calendar issues. Gener- ally, there are three good times to start a public worship service: the fall, just after the new year, and around Easter. We are planning to launch our grand opening Sunday at the end of August.
5. Invite as many people as possible to attend your launch service. The most effective invitation is a
is with the pastor, his wife, and the core group, all inviting those people they know to join them for a worship service. Another form of personal in- vitation can be to a “gathering event,” church-sponsored gatherings to intro- duce new people to the core group. We chats, women’s brunches, beach par- ties, etc. to meet new people here. Beyond the personal invitation and gathering events, it can be helpful to get the word out even more broadly. To do this most core groups will use various communications channels to invite people to their worship service. For example, we are using a direct - holds, newspaper ads, and social me- dia—such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google—to invite people to join us.
6. Worship together with those whom God draws to your new church! Because most churches are most vulnerable to spiritual attack just be- fore they launch, please be in prayer for us and each church plant that the ARPC is launching.
Helping You Reach Your Community 14 The Associate Reformed Presbyterian
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