Some Austin evangelical leaders are moving toward developing a Citywide Church Planters Assessment that is cross-denominational and city renewing. Stew summarizes our recent meeting very well. He lists several reasons this is a good movement:
- It smells like the Kingdom: anytime gospel-centered churches pursue a vision to work together to plant churches Jesus seems to show up.
- It’s a good start: many of the folks at that table are very experienced in successful church planting. This isn’t their first rodeo, so they know what works and what doesn’t
- It’s raises the right kinds of questions: soon after the meeting began it became evident that assessment was only going to be one slice of the church planting pie, although that is what brought us together – the opportunity for a city-wide church planter assessment. It became clear that there would need to be other “engines” and facets of church planting we would need to work together on, including coaching, supervision, funding, research, and training.