[0:00]
So one of the rules that you kind of want to have echoing in the back of your mind is this IID 2IC thing. IID 2IC, if I die, who is my second in charge? Who am I going to hand over? Who's shadowing me? This is not because we're hoping or planning for the worst, it's in a bit morbid. It's really just the principle to multiply ourselves. Since last video we're going to touch on something that we've previously mentioned,

[0:30]
it's something that's a key relational, missional and discipleship structure within church, which is teams. That is groups of people connected around a common ministry purpose that's pursuing the shared vision and outcomes of the church. Now this is not a big church thing. In fact starting from the very beginning with teams, it allows you to embed a culture of both discipleship and leadership development from the very beginning. So Derek, give us some thoughts. Okay, I've got four things. Let's go. I'm going to start with the first one.

[1:00]
The first one's longest, but there's four things. Here is the first one. Don't do a thousand tiny teams. Let's say you're launching with 40 people, you're going for less complexity, not more. Don't over-engineer it. You want people with people. That's the point. You want some fat in teams. And so you're not breaking things up to a thousand different tiny roles when you've just got 40 people. Yeah. Okay, well let's work through an example of teams. I'll let's think about the main gathering. So if you're a church of 500, you might

[1:30]
have an onstage team, a vibe team, a connection team. You can't do that when you've got 40 people. Otherwise, yeah, you're going to have 20 teams of one to two people in them. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's where you build bigger teams around common purposes. And within that common team, that bigger team, they cover a few areas. So you might have a team, for example, at the start, that's the gathering team. And their purpose is to create a moment where God's people love gathering together. They hear from God's word and respond with repentance.

[2:00]
And joy and praise. And for those who don't need, no, you know, him to hear the gospel clearly in a comfortable and loving environment and know how to take the next steps to Jesus. Now that's pithy, isn't it? That's a very pithy. But there might be, is a team gets together. That might be the kind of thing that they say to each other. This is what we're trying to do. This is where we're trying to go. That's their job description. And in that whole team, that gathering team, they might have the responsibilities of the onstage team, the vibe team, the connection team. It might be the same.

[2:30]
The morning tea to the morning afternoon tea, whatever that is afterwards, they might all be in that one team, that gathering team to create that experience, that moment, that outcome. Now, as you grow from 40 to 60 to 800, you might realize, oh, they actually use one area that we need to pull out because it's such a significant workload. It's a huge job. And so we pull them out. There's a gathering team still that covers three. But the actual vibe team is so big now or so has more people. And so they become their own team. You pull them out. And create the vibe team, he vibes, and they're responsible to ensure that there's this vibe on Sunday, whatever their job description is, they come. So let's say, don't, not a thousand tiny things, be sensible, less complexity, not more.

[3:13]
And so there are other examples in the ebook with this podcast, but the principles seem to be start with simple teams around key purposes and adjust over time and grow according to your circumstances. Yeah. And a gradual release of responsibility for the key roles within church, that allows people to free them to express in their roles, their own, I don't know, the way that they would do things in their own inimitable way. However, they would do it within the framework of vision values, but you want their personality coming out, not just the plan to stamp every single place.

[3:47]
Yeah. Okay. So the second one, make sure you have job descriptions for the teams. What would you say? Someone says, I got 40 people. I don't need a job description. Yeah, it doesn't say exciting. Doesn't know who wants to write a job description. I'm sure there's some people out there who want to write job descriptions, but I'm not one of them. Yeah, look, it doesn't matter how many you've got. And I'm not saying make them complicated. It's the thing. I'm not saying you said before, teams are not a big church thing. There, I would argue there, there are church thing. There are a unit of church that helps us to cycle and grow people and lead and lead as well.

[4:21]
You don't overcomplicate this. I'm not saying complicated job descriptions. And you have them for the bigger teams as well, but it does provide clarity for people. Might be half page, might be one page. And it's not detailing every role, but you want within that team, the job description to actually help them have a framework for what it is they're trying to do. What outcome are they pushing towards? It's just very high level. We want, don't want people to be captured by a task. Do this. That's not all we want people to be captured by. We want people captured by a vision and committed to discipling us around them as they pursue that vision. Now there's going to be tasks underneath that, but a job description provides a framework within which they can be creative with direction.

[5:04]
Yeah. And so job descriptions are they provide a framework for people to know where they're going. And for leaders of teams to be able to remind those in their teams and to rally behind them. They don't have to be complex. In fact, they shouldn't be. Nope. But you're saying that setting them up at the start will help set the tone for your ministry within your church and moving forward. If you grab the ebook, you'll find some other examples of what we mean there. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Maybe just tweak it. Alright, thirdly, identify leaders and co-leaders and provide them with help for running their teams.

[5:38]
Yeah. Okay. So one of the rules that you kind of want to have echoing in the back of your mind is this IID2IC thing. IID2IC. If I die, who is my second in charge? Who am I going to hand over? Who's shadowing me? Now this is not because we're hoping or planning for the worst sensitive morbid. It's really just the principle to multiply ourselves throughout all of church life, to raise up leaders, to hand over ministries in a deliberate and helpful way. That's the goal here. So while we want to take this slowly at the start as you get to know your launch team, you want to be consistently on the look at your rate as radar is going for who it is that you can hand over responsibility to.

[6:21]
People who exhibit godly character initiative desire to serve leadership competencies. That's who you're looking for. Now we have an entire course on teams that you can find a link to in the ebook. But in short what we're looking for in these leaders is we want leaders with biblical character, alignment of theological convictions and the competencies needed to lead others. How do you find those people? How do you find those people? Yeah, they just have little signs of it. That's our work.

[6:53]
Well, it is tricky. In your launch team meetings as you meet people one-on-one, you are going to become aware of people who fit some of these characteristics. People who put their hand up a little bit quicker, people who show a little bit more initiative, people who are gentle and kind and loving and godly and thoughtful, who engage in team environments, not about themselves, who step up into roles where they might not have direct responsibility. All these kind of things, just little things. The most significant bottleneck in churches is lack of leaders.

[7:25]
But I would say it's not because they're not there, it's because we're often not looking for them as well. So if you can build a culture early where you personally are looking for people and raising up and deploying people, you begin to build a leadership pipeline from day-down. You begin to set yourself up to continue your ministry long after you're there, long after you're not there. Okay, so fourth and finally, be prepared to recruit from day one. How is this different to the if I die, who will be my second in charge?

[7:57]
Yeah, look, at the time of launch, you're going to have met with and work with all these members of your launch team to help them join you and join others in achieving the vision. Therefore, each of these conversations should be helping people hone and sharpen why it is their here, help them understand what it is, and help you hone and sharpen as well, how it is you speak to other people about that. The goal is that when you launch publicly, you've all got a common vocabulary. You're all speaking the same language.

[8:30]
For Christians who join you, having worked through whatever the equivalent of the kind of membership or onboarding courses, you want to have a conversation with them about how they can use their gifts and experience and time and energy in order to join you and serve God in the context you're in there, pursue the vision of the church. Now, as you approach that conversation, you've got in your head, you've got teams, you've got opportunities that exist within the church as you have a conversation with people about how they might be able to serve.

[9:01]
During those conversations, whether you're doing it informally, whether you're doing it through a conversation, formally, sit down, some form, whatever it is, you're seeking to understand where people are at and help understand how they might fit into the mission of the church you're doing. So, the entire conversation is the reminder of how any of these roles aren't just tasks. They are roles to pursue the vision of reaching the lost here. So, as you're having a conversation with your launch team about where they might be, where they might serve, as you're identifying people about around leadership, your IID2IC, and who you're going to train, and how you're going to do it, what you're doing at this point is you're recruiting from day one, from the very beginning.

[9:46]
So, you're doing that in every aspect of, and you're helping others to do it as well. So, I was not just you doing it, the hope is that everyone is raising up people in order to join you in the capacities, in the roles, in the gifts of God of Guim, for the vision you have. All right, so, as we've mentioned, we put together an entire course on Teams, and you can find a link to that in the ebook, which will help you give you a bigger picture of where this will head, but in the early stages of your plant, you don't want to over-engineer it, keep it simple, keep it relational, and that way you can adjust and adapt as you grow, as you work out the lay of the land, and the people that God has given you to work with in this new church.

[10:29]
Well, that's the end of this section of the Church Planning Australia podcast on preparing for launch. If you're thinking about church planning, would love to hear from you, please reach out with love to talk to you, and help you think through church planting, and how you can be reaching those who don't know Jesus all across Australia. Should we talk to a half-five there, and then you can after effects, you can do glita coming down. Oh, yes.