Tuesday, January 23, 2007

What is Short Cycle Church Planting® (part 2 of a series)?

In 2007 Amee and I will be leading an Avant Short Cycle Church Planting Team back to Italy. This entry is part two in a series that explains this cutting edge philosophy in missions known as Short Cycle Church Planting (SCCP).

At the core of the SCCP philosophy in a high performance team.

The team will rely upon its collective creativity and the power of God to accomplish the task of church planting. But it is guided by five principles that we express in the acronym “SHORT”.


“S” Simultaneous Activity

If you would come to our house some evening you might find me sitting on the couch watching the news, reading a book during commercials, talking to a church member on the phone with music playing softly in the background all while Amee tells me about her day with the kids.

When she finally throws her arms up in frustration I tell her that I’m “multitasking”.

To some extent we all have the ability to do more than one thing at a time. While you read my blog you may be Skyping someone or have the TV on in the background.

Simultaneous activity within SCCP is a bit like this. Instead of thinking sequentially, the team will focus on all phases of church planting concurrently.

For example, when the team arrives in Italy next fall we will go directly to our target area. We will not spend one to two years in a different city for language learning and cultural adaptation.

Real ministry doesn’t start after the completion of language school. It occurs simultaneously.

We believe that those first months and even that first year will be powerful in establishing routines, building momentum and sowing seeds of the gospel amongst the people in our community.

In our current ministry here in Bologna we put the principle of simultaneous activity into practice just last week.

For the last several months Tim has been discipling Jean Jacques. A linear approach to church planting would have Jean Jacques complete the studies set out before us and then upon their completion move him along to leadership development.

But Jean is a doer. He finds fulfillment and meaning in activity. So I had him preach on Sunday. Up in front…leading. When we met later that week for study we had some great things to talk about as we evaluated his sermon and giftedness.

Discipleship and leadership development done all at the same time.

That is simultaneous activity acted out in the real world. Putting this principle into practice regularly on our team will shorten the time necessary to plant biblical, mature, reproducing churches.