Unfiltered: Real Church Planting Conversations

When planting a church, one of the first and most stressful decisions you have to make is: What should I name it? Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee share tips to help you select a name that will work for your church.

1:11 Danny talks about the process he used to name his church plant.

4:00 Danny discusses how omitting the word "church" from the name caused problems.

5:22 Lee says the name needs to connect to your culture, society and community. "We intentionally put ‘community church’ in our name because we wanted people to know we are part of the community."

7:22 Lee talks about why he choose to keep the same name for his second church plant.

7:55 Danny and Lee discuss the advantages and disadvantages of including the city name in your church name.

9:11 Lee says it’s good to be creative when picking a name, but don’t get too creative. "If your name needs too much explanation behind it, you are losing the opportunity to connect with just a normal person in your community."

10:40 Lee says the name needs to flow well into a logo and a website URL.

10:53 Danny says you should research the area to make sure the name isn’t being used by another church or by a church that no longer exists. 

11:48 Danny and Lee discuss some good reasons for renaming your church.

12:55 Lee and Danny talk about the current trends they see in church names.

14:16 Lee says it comes down to finding a name that your community can naturally understand without a big explanation.

14:53 Lee doesn’t think you need to hire a marketing firm to come up with a name.

15:43 Danny and Lee suggest checking for website availability of the name and if another church has trademarked the name.

Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee discuss the lessons Lee learned as a pastor’s kid and how he’s applied them to his family and ministry.

1:17 Lee talks about how he and his wife both grew up as a pastor’s kid.

1:59 Lee discusses the pain his parents experienced in ministry and how that affected him.

3:47 Lee encourages pastors to allow their kids to see both the good and the ugly side of ministry.

4:49 Lee talks about how his parents brought him into some of the decisions they were making at their church.

5:10 Lee says he’s carried his parents’ practices over to his kids. "When we decided to move from Arizona to Florida, it was a family decision. We sat down with our kids. We talked to them about what God was doing in our lives, what God was maybe calling us to do and what they thought about that. We prayed together as a family. And when we decided to plant again, we asked them what they thought about it."

6:50 Lee talks about how to know what – and how much – to share with your kids about your church’s problems.

7:51 Lee says his parents never allowed him to see the disunity that existed in the church.

9:43 Lee says it’s OK for us as pastors, and as parents, to admit that we don’t have it all figured out.

10:35 Lee discusses how interacts with his family after a bad day at work.

11:34 Lee says it’s important to allow your kids to see the celebration moments too. "There are benefits to being the pastor’s kid."

12:36 Lee encourages pastors, when they have a speaking engagement, to ask the church to send a note back to their kid(s). "Maybe even a gift card that says, ‘Hey, thanks so much for sharing your dad with us this past weekend. Here’s $20 to McDonald’s. Why don’t you take your dad out for lunch sometime?’"

13:13 Danny says that when he travels, he likes to bring his 10-year-old daughter with him.

15:07 Danny and Lee say it’s OK if your family needs some time away from church on a Sunday.

16:20 Lee says it’s "such a gift" to see his son want to serve at church.

16:32 Lee says we’ve got to guard our kids from people in the church who demand higher expectations of them just because they’re the pastor’s kid.

17:01 Danny warns against connecting your kids’ behavior to your position. Avoid saying things like, "Don’t do that. Don’t you know what a reflection that will be on my position or the church? Because then they’re just tying their behavior to your position, instead of making it, ‘We don’t do that because Jesus doesn’t want us to."

Weddings, funerals and hospital visits, oh my! Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee discuss how you can manage pastoral care as a church planter.

0:59 Danny says his earliest experiences with pastoral care were funerals.

1:50 Danny says in the beginning he said yes to everyone’s requests.

1:59 Danny and Lee say that they prefer funerals to weddings because there is more of an openness to spiritual things at a funeral.

2:45 Danny thinks funerals are great opportunities to minister to people inside your church and to build relationships outside of the church.

3:22 Lee says he didn’t do a lot of funerals the first 3-4 years because his church plant was mostly attracted young families.

4:15 Lee says he got a lot of requests to do weddings. He offered free funerals to anyone in the community, but they had to pay for weddings.

4:33 Lee talks about how much he charged for premarital counseling, the ceremony and the reception.

5:09 Lee says most couples don’t understand the time commitment required by the pastor for weddings and premarital counseling.

6:28 To protect his time with his family, Danny started telling couples that we would do their premarital counseling, rehearsal and ceremony, but he wouldn’t go to the reception.

7:39 Danny says as his church plant grew, multiple pastors were available to do weddings. He says they also commissioned church members to do weddings and premarital counseling.

8:49 Lee says hospital visitations are an excellent opportunity to develop leaders. This is what a small group does; this is why you need to be in a small group.

9:56 Danny says hospital visits only need to be 15-20 minutes.

10:27 Danny recommends bringing someone else with you — an intern, a friend, someone from their small group.

11:04 Lee says even when you’re in a time crunch season, a phone call goes a long way.

11:12 Lee talks about how God used two tough situations in the life of his church plant for good.

Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee discuss what to do when your church plant isn’t going the way you thought it would. How can you know if it’s time to relaunch or if it’s time to call it quits?

1:17 Danny says the culture of church planting and the common characteristics of church planters is to persevere at all costs

2:22 Lee talks about how his first church plant had three grand openings

3:20 Lee identifies three main areas that determine the success of a church plant

4:45 Danny says a relaunch needs to be more than just changing your name, logo and website

5:52 Danny says if you relaunch, it’s really important that you actually stop meeting for Sunday services

6:33 Lee says if you’re not willing to put in the energy and effort into an honest evaluation of why you are where you’re at before you relaunch, you’re basically putting "lipstick on a pig."

6:58 Lee recommends reaching out for help for honest, hard feedback from a coach or a more experienced church planter

7:35 Danny says church planters need to be open the fact that they may or may not be the problem

8:26 Danny says if you’re obedient to God’s call to plant a church, it is not a failure

9:28 Lee reminds us that God cares more about what we are becoming than what we are actually doing

10:02 Lee says what God is doing behind the scenes may be way bigger than I ever thought

11:46 Lee says the church plants that he’s seen relaunch successfully have reached out to somebody that was more experienced and got a coach

12:12 Lee talks about three key areas to look at: the planter’s leadership, the church’s financial sustainability and discipleship

13:50 Danny says there is no magic number or matrix that will help you decide if it’s time to relaunch or to call it quits.

15:14 Lee says the final thing that brings the most clarity is the culture piece. Are we the culture that we set out to become?

15:55 Danny ends the conversation by encouraging those who need to keep going. For others, this may be the end of this season of ministry, but it’s going to be OK.

Every summer, many churches experience a dip in attendance and giving. Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee discuss what you can do to overcome the summer slump.

0:54 Danny talks about his experience with the summer slump at his church plant and what he learned.

2:00 Danny says he realized that while attendance is often down in the summer, it is a prime time to strengthen and grow the church.

2:40 Danny shifted his mentality to "plant in summer, harvest in fall."

3:42 Danny talks about the summertime culture in Milwaukee affected his church plant.

4:50 Lee discusses the challenges the summer heat in Phoenix presented for his church plant.

5:43 Lee says the summer can be a time to build momentum. It's important to address the summer slump before it hits.

6:05 Lee has found the biggest hit to be in giving, not attendance. He gives an example of what to say to your congregation heading into summer.

7:22 Danny says it's important to understand that you have to adjust your communication patterns and rhythms in the summer.

8:16 Danny talks about how to handle volunteers in the summer. Lee says it's a great time to think about development.

9:48 Danny and Lee talk about their preaching schedule in the summer.

10:12 Danny preached on his church's core values during the summer.

10:52 Lee chose a character-building series for June and used July to talk about vision and the fall.

11:17 Lee and Danny recommend thinking through the school calendar when planning your fall launch/big series kickoff.

12:25 Lee says if you even hold your numbers in the summer, you are actually growing.

12:52 Lee ends the podcast by emphasizing the importance of planning.

Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee conclude their discussion on how to instill multiplication into a church’s DNA. This episode focuses on building an evangelistic culture.

1:50 Lee says if a church wants to plant a church for a reason other than evangelism, then it shouldn’t do it.

2:30 Danny says that the prerequisite for a church planter isn’t to have the gift of evangelism, but to have a passion and drive for it.

3:44 Lee says it’s important for the sending church to think about its return on investment. Where are you going to see the most fruit?

4:55 Danny discusses how pastors and leadership teams can evaluate if they are evangelistically driven.

6:54 Lee talks about three questions a church can ask itself to help identify if it is evangelistically driven.

8:37 Lee encourages listeners to talk to the leaders at their church and with other pastors about how they’re doing evangelism.

Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee continue their discussion on how to instill multiplication into a church’s DNA. This episode explores seven models of church planting.

1:50 Danny talks about the benefits and downside of the multisite model.

4:25 Lee shares a question the parent church needs to ask itself when considering multisite.

5:30 Danny says he’s seen more mistakes with multisite than any other model.

7:00 Lee and Danny discuss the death by dignity model.

9:15 Danny talks about the unplanned pregnancy model, when a church is planted because of a church split.

10:55 Lee talks about how churches that think they are too small or young to plant can use the partnering church planting model.

12:53 Lee and Danny discuss the parachute/pioneering model, where a leader recruits a small group of leaders and they go into uncharted territory.

14:24 Lee and Danny talk about the differences between the branching and colonizing models.

Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee continue their discussion on instilling the DNA of church multiplication into a church plant. This episode focuses on being sacrificial and generous in sending your people.

1:50 Danny talks about the mistake he made early on at his church plant of being tightfisted with people and how that ended up driving them away.

3:40 Danny says being openhanded with people is a heart position. Before you say yes or no, you need to take some time to have a conversation with people about what's going on in their life and what God might be calling them to.

5:00 Danny: It doesn't mean that you automatically say yes to everything, but at least have the conversation. "We want you where God wants you. And if God wants someone somewhere else ... that is where you want that person."

5:50 Lee discusses what causes a leadership team/board of elders/lead pastor to be reluctant to send people out. "Don't allow fear to dictate the decisions that you make when it comes to the Kingdom of God."

6:40 Lee talks about how a pastor can manipulate the situation to send out people he doesn't want.

7:20 Lee discusses the importance of having agenda value harmony in how people connect to the mission and vision of the new church.

8:20 Danny says sending churches need to do a better job of preparing people who are being sent out.

11:00 Lee talks to church planters who have been given a free "hunting license" by their parent church.

11:35 Lee recommends that church planters host information meetings at the sending church and engage the leadership of the parent church to be at the meetings. Give a platform for the lead pastor of the parent church to talk about why they're excited about this new work.

11:55 Lee talks about the importance of having an application process for people who want to join the new church plant launch team.

13:50 Lee identifies three levels of involvement in a church plant for people coming out of a parent church.

15:30 Lee points out some key questions to ask on the launch team application.

17:10 Lee talks about the type of people he would have fill out an application.

Converge church planting leaders Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee discuss how to instill the DNA of multiplication into the life of a church plant.

0:55 Lee talks about how to think about multiplication before you even launch.

1:20 Lee says the first step is being intentional about creating vision alignment around why multiplication is important.

1:30 Lee discusses common questions (objections) he’s heard: Don’t we have enough churches already? Why would we plant new churches when there are already churches that are dying and looking to be rehabilitated?

3:40 Danny explains why it’s important to teach sacrifice before you teach multiplication.

4:40 Lee says the reality is you won’t become a multiplying church if you don’t want to; nobody’s going to force it on you.

5:15 Lee talks about three costs of being a multiplying church.

6:35 Danny talks about how long it took for his church’s new sites to become self-sustaining.

8:05 Lee encourages sending churches to decrease the amount of money they’re giving a church plant over time to keep them “hungry” and help them become self-sustaining.

9:30 Danny says that it takes generosity (finances and personnel) to become a multiplying church.

10:30 Lee talks about the time and personnel costs for the sending church.

11:35 Lee encourages churches to set aside a portion of their income to invest in the future new work.

12:50 Danny says he’s seen over and over how God blesses generous churches.

14:10 Lee recaps the episode and says this is just the first of several episodes in this series talking about steps a church can take to become a multiplying church.

As a church planter, how do you continue to move the vision forward when you don’t have enough money? Hosts Lee Stephenson and Danny Parmelee discuss how to maximize what you have.

0:55 Lee identifies the different facets of this topic (marketing, day-to-day ministry and maximizing volunteers).

1:20 Danny talks about the importance of having a bootstrap mentality and not expecting the best of the best right away.

2:50 Danny lists three areas where it’s easy to overspend and get in trouble (marketing, rent and equipment).

3:50 Lee says planters need to distinguish between what they can offer as a church plant vs. an established church.

4:25 Identify the things you feel like are niche opportunities for you in your community. What are the few things that you have to do really well? You can’t do everything.

5:50 Lee says to keep in mind that anytime you spend less than you make you’re going to be OK.

6:10 Danny shares smaller-scale, low-cost marketing ideas.

8:30 Lee says when resources are limited, it’s not a time to wallow and feel defeated; it’s a time for creativity to rise.

9:20 Danny points out that you’ll never have enough resources to do all that you want to do.

9:50 Don’t forsake generosity or savings even with limited resources.

10:30 Lee says often the vision is a whole lot bigger than the resources; that’s the thing God uses to keep us living by faith. Press forward, don’t be discouraged in that process.