How do I locate a Church Planting Coach to help me or my team?
Experienced, skillful and effective CP Coaches are few and far between, but there are a growing number available in YWAM and elsewhere. Let us know your desire and we will check to see if there is a Coach available in your area. If it turns out there is none or until there is, we recommend that you establish a peer coaching relationship with one or two other persons who are attempting to do work similar to you and with whom you have a relationship. Such a peer coaching relationship might involve the following elements:
PEER COACHING
Commit to meet together face to face every 4 – 8 weeks over a specific period of time (e.g. 6 – 12 months). If the only other team leader or church planter to do this with is a member of the opposite sex, then make sure there is a third person available to join you. You may have multiple peer coaching relationships over the months or years; but once you have committed to meet, make your meeting a priority and stick to it.
When you meet you will do any or all of the following:
o Encourage, comfort, Exhort, Admonish, and Challenge one another.
o Share goals related to Church Planting work and Personal Spiritual Development
o Report on progress or setbacks related to those goals
o Set appropriate new goals
o Discuss and evaluate plans to meet those goals
o Verbally commit yourselves before each others to faithfully pursue those goals and to diligently implement those plans
o Pray in faith for one another, team members and the work you are doing
If there is no one near enough to meet with as described above, you may want setup a similar relationship conducted via email. This is more difficult but still better than nothing.
How do I get onto a YWAM church planting team?
If you are not already a member of Youth With A Mission, the first step is to do a Discipleship Training School )DTS). We recommend choosing a DTS with a focus on the frontiers. Your vision and call need to be nurtured and encouraged, not drowned in options. We have put together a list to help you .
Once you have your DTS ‘under your belt’, you need to take a frontier mission school. The School of Frontier Mission (SOFM) is designed to train you how to plant churches among the unreached. Check out the !
SOFM grads connect with church planting teams in a variety of ways. Your SOFM may form new teams that you will have an opportunity to join. For this reason it is important to know the focus or target peoples/regions of your chosen school. OR You may join one of the over 300 existing CP teams already on the field. We would be happy to help you connect up with your dream-team. Your SOFM staff will also be a great resource. Another thing that happens is that people scattered across various SOFMs with the same target group will connect and form a new team OR You may be the pioneer around which a CP team for your people group coalesces.
And more on that from Kevin:
We’re glad to hear that you believe that the Lord is leading you to work in His harvest field among the unreached.
YWAM has about 300 teams actively involved in pioneer, cross-cultural church planting among unreached people groups from West Africa across the Middle East and through East Asia. Many of those teams are eager to have new workers join with them.
Work with YWAM begins with our “boot camp” which we call the Discipleship Training School (DTS). These 5 to 6-month training programs are offered all over the world. There is huge variety when it comes to ministry focus. Since you are focused on those who have never heard (as are the 1,600 YWAMers we work with in the “Frontier Missions” arm of YWAM ), we have a list of Discipleship Training Schools we recommend.
Where can I find funding for my church planting work?
YWAM Church Planting Coaches can provide a variety of resources, but financial funding is not one of them. Like many frontline church planters, we raise our own support in order to serve. There are many helpful materials available to guide you in developing a base of financial and prayer support. Check out the “Recommended Reading” menu link for recommendations.
Why doesn’t this website cover YWAM church planting in the good old USA?
The short answer is that we are not currently aware of any YWAM church planting going on among unreached people groups (our focus) in the USA, with the exception of the Hopi Tribe in AZ, and a team working at reaching a couple unreached people groups in Chicago. We would include any new works answering the above description. If your goal is to reach the Somalian refugees of Kansas City (or any other unreached peoples in the USA), let us help!
This question usually come from those desiring to plant new churches among reached people groups in the USA. This is both needed and laudable, but there are many other web resources specifically geared to help with this task. Start at and for help in this regard.
What is the best simple and quick introduction to missions for our family, group, church, or school ?
Rex G. reports:
The best resource we’ve found is called “Operation Worldview” from Mission One. It’s on DVD and has workbooks. There are eight 30 minute sessions. What’s great about it is that no one in the group really needs to know any of this material ahead of time. They just play the DVD and then ask the questions from the workbook. It covers the basic foundations of the “Perspectives On The World Christian Movement” course. Two versions are available. We bought the one that is introduced by Steve Hawthorne. He encourages the students to take the full Perspectives Course when they can.
We would love to see everyone using these DVD’s! It could be revolutionary to get these basic Frontier Missions principles into people’s heads.
What does the ideal Frontier Mission school curriculum look like?
Great question. Rather than start with a list of 12 prescribed topics of the weeks of the school, let’s take one step back and describe our desired output for an FM school.
Frontier Missions Training / School of Frontier Missions
Nine Essential Skills and Attitudes
1. Skill: That the candidates would have the sensitivity and ability to initiate their own language learning strategy (which includes helping them learn how to become a positive wanted part of the community).
Attitude: “I recognized I can and must learn the language of the people group, using and adapting various linguistic principles (e.g. LAMP/LEARN), together with other resources available.”
2. Skill: Sensitivity and ability to initiate their own culture acquisition program and a community needs assessment approach (including some people group research during the school.)
Attitude: “I can and want to explore culture and community dynamics including the unseen values and felt needs of the people group.”
3. Skill: Knowing how to start developing and step out towards an integrated strategy in responding to the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs of the people group.
Attitude: “It is my heart’s desire to see the holistic gospel brought to these people, and I am confident in how my role and calling fits together with other team members in seeing this happen.
4. Skill: Knowing how to develop and step out toward an integrated strategy in evangelism, discipling, and leadership training that results in a church planting movement among the people group.
Attitude: “Church Planting is my goal and I can and want to step ahead in applying Biblical principles, building strategic relationships and implementing a church planting strategy, raising up local leaders as change agents and as indigenous church planters.”
5. Skill: Being able to communicate a Biblical mandate for missions (including God’s heart for the poor and the Kingdom of God) and using good examples from the history of missions.
Attitude: “I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God and I can and want to study it regularly. My motivation and foundation for missions has a broad base in the Bible, and I want to learn and creatively communicate (storytelling, role playing, drama, etc. from the Bible and from HIStory.”
6. Skill: Recognizing traditional beliefs and enemy involvement and responding in sensitive and effective spiritual warfare.
Attitude: “I am not afraid of spiritual warfare, but see it as a key, recognizing my need to develop my skills in this area.”
7. Skill: Identifying and using as many spiritual gifts as possible.
Attitude: “I want to continue growing in these spiritual gifts, stepping out in faith as well as affirming and relying on the gifts and calling of others.”
8. Skill: Organizing home front strategies in regards to building an enthusiastic support team for prayer, finances, practical and emotional needs.
Attitude: “I am confident in my calling to raise a support team, to effectively communicate and involve my home front in God’s purposes, to be organized and fully accountable.”
9. Skill: How to work and communicate well within a YWAM team and with YWAM in general, and potentially networking with specialized structures and ministries within YWAM and beyond.
Attitude: “I believe YWAM is a good place for me and I want to be a proactive and responsible (and potentially a leader) of a YWAM team.
Now, with the end in mind, we can rough out a “perfect” 12 week line-up (not in any order):
1. Orientation: to school, and Frontier Missions (What is FM and brief history of FM in YWAM)
2. Multiplying Churches on the Frontiers (two week interactive CP training – “heart of the SOFM)
3. [ditto above]
4. Language Learning Methods (usually L.A.M.P. or similar approach)
5. Cultural Acquisition (how to study and adapt to the new culture)
6. Biblical Foundation of Frontier Mission (from Perspectives program or similar) [We recommend “Operation Worldview” an eight 1/2 hr. session DVD with workbook which covers the basics of the Perspectives Course]
7. Team Development / Spiritual Giftings
8. Support Team Development
9. Holistic Ministry / Christian Community Development
10. Unreached People Groups / Unfinished Task and Major Blocs (Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, etc.) OR a focus on one chosen Bloc (example: Muslim Evangelism week)
11. Spiritual Warfare and Intercession
12. SOFM Leader’s choice*
Suggested topics for SOFM Leader’s choice*
o Strategic Coordinator introduction
o Signs and Wonders, Power Evangelism
o Strategy Development: Vision, Goals, and Strategy Project
o Practical Field Skills (i.e. butchering, small business, etc)
o Servant Leadership
o Personality Profile and team building week
o Bonding and Enculturation
o Cross-Cultural Communication
o Evangelism & Evangelization
o Storying / Chronological Bible Storytelling
What is the difference between a YWAM SOFM and a SOSM, especially in regards to planting churches?
The SOFM is the school-of-choice for training focused church planters for the unreached.
The SOSM is also designed to equip workers for pioneer fields, but with a variety of goals and outcomes in mind. It is less focused and more generalized, but a very good school for those who want to do things other than starting reproducing church movements.
The descriptions the schools have for themselves say it all:
SOSM: “Training and course content focuses on both short and long-term strategies to accomplish all aspects of ministry toward unreached peoples. This includes training home front and frontline workers to plant and mobilize churches to disciple nations and birth strategic mission movements.”
SOFM: “The School of Frontier Missions is specifically geared toward training church plant teams focused on unreached people groups in the 10/40.”
When is Jesus coming back?
Only His Father knows the answer to that question.
However, the Lord Himself gave us a clue in Matthew 24:14