church plant training

Why You Need Church Plant Training AND Coaching

Getting church plant training and having a church planting coach are both critical support structures as you embark on planting a new church. But they are incomplete without each other.

church plant training

I used to play with Legos®️. A lot. I loved to spill out all the pieces on the carpet and sit in the middle of it all creating new machines and structures. Using that as metaphor, let’s explore why you need both church plant training and a church planting coach:

Coaching Nurtures Progress

Coaching can help you clarify vision and mission – what you’re being called to build. It can also help you process through problems and navigate roadblocks. But because a good coach will never tell you what to do, she can only help you ‘rearrange’ the things you already know or have experienced.

You can gain new perspectives on your situation or imagine new possibilities, but you’re limited to the building blocks you already have on the floor. There are myriad combinations you can make out of the same pile of Legos®️, but you will run out of blocks at some point.

Training Provides New Ideas

Training exposes you to new ideas and thoughts. It stretches you to learn new skills and provides you with new tools. Training puts more building blocks on the floor.

It may even provide you with an instruction manual, the kind that shows you how to build a specific Lego®️ vehicle or cityscape. But those instructions won’t help you figure out what to do if you don’t have the right pieces or enough blocks for that design, because…

Church Plant Training isn’t Customized

That’s just the nature of training – if someone is going to put together training materials, they’re not going to do it for just one church plant situation. They’re going to write it for a larger audience so that it can be used over and over.

But no two church plants are the same. There are so many complex variables, each church ends up as unique as a fingerprint. Training necessarily generalizes principles and tactics that may or may not work in your context.

You need both church plant training and coaching so you can have lots of raw materials to work with and not get stuck or off course. Work with your church planting group or denominational body to make sure you get access to both!


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