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Andrew thanks again for joining us serve another question from church planters so to you to basically draw in your experience and what we've got now is from a church planter on the south coast and he's talking about team management so he asks how do you manage multiplying quickly without becoming staff centric and thereby restricting your ability to reach a whole region he's getting at the fact that there's a tension between growing a church and growing a team and maybe growing a team can take away from

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what the church might expect to be so how do you handle that balance what's your wisdom there well yeah but I'd bounce some thoughts around okay you helped me understand what I'm saying we can you're planning a church they talking planning Church you're in that kind of 50 40 30 stage of people it seems to me there's there's too big put simply there's too big priorities mission wise you want to get profile and you want to get personal work so the two

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ways this small community of people is going to connect to the community is through umbrella profile and through the individuals doing connecting so how did that's how you grow your church by connecting pool so the personal work is you know the 3040 people I've got they will have friends they'll know people they can get to know people stirring them and helping them the on task with that in engaging with their friends and so on is one to mention but the other

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dimension of course is that there's a whole region way beyond the 30 or 40 people of will your friends will know that you're not connected with so that's the protocol you know what what can I then invest in to create such a noise about this new church this new community this new belief that we're bringing of Jesus that as I mentioned in the seminar recently the the warm contact the person who has had some touch with Christian things or some disturbance in their life

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where they're wondering and puzzling how do they get connected to me where my friend no works on to them so the two things profile and and you've got to work both those and as a resource limited leader who is stretched for time I've got to analyze where the where the biggest returns are with time input so have I got a group of 30 or 40 people who have got good networks who are working their processes

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well so that by that means we're getting good steady contact which is filling up our time well if that's the case you may put a little bit less on the profile side of things but if you've got a group of people in oh you know say a socially disadvantaged area where they're not good relationally they haven't got great fringe skills they're not there way back on the mission mind you might admit to invest more time in the profile side of things to get to get

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a broader reach for this community you've got to balance your limited time so they're the two big areas I'd be working on initially now behind all of that is the is the once I'm connecting people how am i drawing them in to understand the gospel how am i connecting them into the community how am i deepening them if they come to faith and holding them up there's all the processes that happen after that where attention is needed keeping those

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two things distinct I think it's important okay but when you do that I guess you're making a decision too about your team aren't you because if you decide that you're going to be concentrating more on the umbrella then I take it you're that's something you want to handle maybe a little more centrally than say just getting everybody to generate as much sort of regional noise as possible so is that where you would start saying okay we need to do more umbrella style interactions so I need to hire somebody

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is that is that gonna affect your the way you build your team or in terms of hiring okay if I might share something we've discussed before I would never hire someone where I could expect a volunteer to do the work it's a good line isn't like doing for um you know the stage of 40 or 50 people you're not in anywhere near a position to think about hiring so you you have to work with volunteers and

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manage the limited resource you've got there and you know you're a long way from thinking employment so developing my ability as a leader to delegate and draw people in fine gifts and abilities mobilize them free them release them that's a major task of a leader in fact I would go so far as to say never employ

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a person who hasn't got that skill because they'll just be an additional person and adder they won't be a multiplier whereas we card in the christian community afford to employ adits we have to employ multipliers so so no I'm as a church planter needing to be the multiplier so I need to be the person who can find the team of 10 people out of the 40 who can engage on the profile activities now having done that you won't absorb someone's time entirely I don't think it should ever be

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a choice between a volunteer who does the centralized profile work let's say or does personal mission work you know I no one's that busy and it's helping people actually they recognize what they're already doing and how they can be more intentional with what they're already doing if I'm if I'm driving to work already find it work someone that I can get a

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lift with you know if I like sport don't watch it on my own you know so come out you don't have to add more to your life you just have to find ways to use what's in my life to do the things that I now need to do and in terms of a leader there's lots of things I'm already doing that I don't have to add on to do better with I just have to be more intentional with what I do so so preaching for instance preaching what other organization has has a structure

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where the leader of the organization gets 40 minutes every week with the team to envisage compelling power stir do you know what other organization has that built into their whole life DNA structure so the sermon is an opportunity to unpack the scriptures in such a way that people see what we've been called to as missionaries evangelists loving friends and so work the things you've got much more as well

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as that the other pieces in and this is what helps them members then be on mission themselves so they're not actually watching so much as looking for that opportunity yeah yeah exactly so that now there's there's where you need to do some analysis in the early stages 30 40 50 60 people you know as a leader I'm kind of have I got are these 40 50 people going to take so much investment discipleship wise for them to become

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effective evangelists themselves or invite us you know not everyone will become the share of the whole gospel with their friend not everyone becomes that but they might at the very least become an inviter you know someone who can invite someone to do things you know that are we so far back with this core group that it's going to take me years to get them up to speed well if that's the case then I might invest my time in some other places to work around that slow to mention I've

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got now hang on hang on I'm not gonna let you get away with something so general so you've got yourself a core group and you're struggling and realizing they're gonna take a lot of time where are you practically going to be able to find people who are going to give you the mission core that you need I mean there's playing people who've started churches and have found that they have lots of one thing and not enough at the other so how do you do bring in more people into that core do you start a second group what do you do

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again it's you know there's no one-size-fits-all if I was in a you know if I mean you know major city in Australia and I I've got 20 30 people who are way back in their spiritual maturity I might cast around for you know two or three people who I could envisage to join this mission team who've got leadership skills and abilities I might cast around to do that but there'll be

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some occasions when you parachute into a context where you just can't you know that they just don't exist you know you think about Richard Johnson it lands with the first flip I mean like he hasn't got much option to cast around anyway and there are contexts where that's very similar day and so what I would do rather is I would I would use my gifts as an evangelist which is what we want shirt planters and need them to be I would use my gifts a little bit more front and center and say find ways

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to maximize the skills and gifts of the people where they are at and mine and wear them together so for instance you know one thing that is already fairly is a possible sell is the dialogue evangelism think so I say to my I get four or five people and I say in two months time on a Tuesday night I'm gonna I'm gonna host a dinner with my wife with you guys and your four friends your

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10 friends and it'll be a direct specific let's talk about spirituality and life after death and have a fun night together talking big issues so what I would I would get them where they're at and get them to be able to do what they can do they may not be the run things themself drugs but but I'd marry our gifts things together and try and work that process so it's it's it's being aware of a number of options I can use given who I've gotten the skills and so on but I'm always thinking what's the

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work way to maximize not just so I another little bounce thought as a leader in that context very early on i I want to invest my limited time in things that have the biggest impact so I won't become the coach of the local soccer team for the sake of mission I won't become that unless I'm in a context that's very very far back because those 3-4 hours six hours a week that are invested in there a non

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specific mission activity that will bring very little return over a long time and so it's far better for me to mobilize half a dozen other people to be doing those kind of things than me do so I use my six hours for that now maybe it makes sense I'm just thinking you know it sounds like well from my background which is a media thing really understanding your audience you know before knowing what you're going to put in front of them and how you're actually going to enable them to be mission minded and so I figure that you've been

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really helpful in helping us unpack that idea of understanding gifts before you marry them with your own to make the greatest effect would you say yeah yeah yeah yeah we've got two audiences at that little heaven you've got the you've got the immediate Christian community is that is your team and it's it's me as a leader marrying that gives an abilities to make this team to far more together than we could all on our own and it's it's me then together with that team perhaps being aware of the audience more

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broadly that I'm trying to reach and what's the best way to begin to mobilize and catch them all the time though I'm trying to find I'm trying to find I don't want to I don't want to do a lot of time in cold contact work if there's warm contacts around did you know I think that's the mistake we we try and we try and reach the people furthest away from us in the gospel and it takes an inordinate amount of time and we're in it for years whereas the black next

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door guys no I'm gonna go for the easy warm context yeah I'm gonna go for the people closest to me build a bigger team which can reach further hmm just thinking strategically and empowering in your work to mobilize it in terms of staffing then you you really at some time down the track before you're in a position to either elevate one of those persons that you've got taking on significant leadership in church and giving freeing them up a little more or bringing someone in from outside but that's you know the church

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in Australian church planning that's you're talking you you fit the hundred mark by now before that's happening unless you've got an MTS worker and some Geneva funding through sponsorships and support you you might have an MTS worker with you as well Andrew thanks Yves I mean for foresee you're just bouncing around you're given two seats to think about will basically be taking more questions from church plans so if you have a question that you'd like to share with Andrew and get his wisdom on just these bouncers which are well worth it you'll see a an email address will come

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up on the screen in a moment Andrew thanks very much for your time I look forward to seeing you next time around good on it thanks man