I’m JUST a Lay Person!

Here are creative ways you can help plant new churches.

Tentmakers—Aquila and Priscilla were lay persons who helped the Apostle Paul plant new churches in Corinth and Ephesus, supporting his ministry and themselves by making tents. Supporting your family and a new church with your employment and using your home as a base for local evangelism is one way to be a lay church planter.

Colonists—Have you ever thought of intentionally moving to a new city, finding employment and making new friends there, as a way to help form the core group for a new church? If you are considering a move, check out the possibilities of pioneering a new church with others in your new location.

Intercessors—You can be a prayer partner for a new church. Intercessors pray regularly for specific church needs. Some prayer team members even participate in on-site prayer walks through target neighborhoods and prayer vigils at strategic times in the new church’s formation.

Entrepreneurs—If you have the spiritual gift of generosity and the ability to make money creatively, consider forming a business with the sole purpose of pouring the profits into church planting efforts.

Catalyzers—A catalyst is a substance that allows a chemical reaction to start or occur faster without being consumed itself in the process. Catalyzers are persons who enable evangelism and ministry by others. For example, they offer property they own as a base for outreach in a community, even though they continue as members of another congregation elsewhere. They may refer friends living in an area to a new church or supply names of potential contacts they know in a target community to church planters for follow-up.

RVers—Some new churches are helped by persons who temporarily move on-site in their own recreational vehicles or mobile housing to assist over several week’s time in outreach projects, in building construction, as a Sunday school teacher, office secretary or other volunteer. This kind of help is especially valuable during the critical period in a young church’s early life when local lay leaders are scarce.

Short-term Volunteers—A popular current trend involves persons who pay their own way to serve on location for a few days or a couple of weeks to assist a church planting project. Short-term volunteers can be invaluable help in countless ways—making door-to-door contacts, leading vacation Bible school, conducting community surveys or teleharvesting campaigns, preparing mass mailings, cleaning or remodeling a meeting place, etc.

Specialists—Would you be willing to have a smaller business if it meant having a larger personal ministry? Consider donating some of your professional skills and time to a new church nearby. They need advice and direction from all kinds of specialists—realtors, contractors, architects, printers, fund-raisers, project managers, marketing specialists, advertising directors, musicians, demographic researchers, vocational counselors, telemarketers, graphic artists. Your specialty may be the perfect talent to enable a young congregation to succeed.

Church Planting Benefactors—Could you provide scholarships or grants for specific church planting needs—such as church planter bootcamp, church planting books, office equipment, meeting place rental, land purchases or building programs? Your estate plan is another way to remember church planting, as well as gifts to district or denominational endowment funds specified for new church development. Of course, gifts of any size help new churches through The Wesleyan Church’s annual North American Missions Offering or to Church Builders Club (two ministries of the Evangelism and Church Growth Department). You can donate online by clicking on the offering logos on E&CG’s homepage at www.wesleyan.org/ecg.

Lay Church Planting Teams—Can you teach a children’s class, minister to youth, counsel adults, preach a sermon? Form a team of volunteers from your own or neighboring churches who will give six months to a year to start a congregation. After gathering a nucleus for the new church and assisting it in securing pastoral leadership, most team members return to their home churches.

Extension Class Teacher—Starting an extension Sunday school class or evangelistic Bible study is a "low-risk" model for lay-led church planting. Look around for opportunities. Is there a suburb, village, high-rise, prison, ethnic neighborhood or neglected people group God has given you a concern to reach with the Good News of Christ? With the spiritual covering and moral support of your church family, you can develop relationships, nurture contacts and gather seeds to grow a church.

How about Becoming the Best Volunteer a Church Plant Pastor Could Ever Ask For?—Not everyone wants the limelight or lots of public praise. If you have the spiritual gift of "helps" or "service," you may be the answer to a church planter’s prayers! Every church needs many persons who willingly, cheerfully work behind the scenes doing the things people only notice when they don’t get done! The greatest joy of such lay heroes comes simply from knowing that whatever they do is done for God alone. Their greatest delight is doing things that free church leaders to really lead (like the deacons in Acts 6 who waited on tables so the apostles could pray and preach more effectively). Ask God to direct you to a church plant where you can invest your time and talents for Christ in ways that will someday cause Him to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"