This week I have already done a lot of work connecting with churches who are already sponsoring our church plant or are praying about their involvement with us. These churches are supporting us (or potentially going to support us) in a variety of ways: they are praying for us, sending us money, volunteering time, and sharing our vision with others.

This sort of involvement from churches in neighboring towns or from around the country is crucial during the beginning years of a new church. In New England I’ve even heard some denominational leaders say that the typical church plant requires ten years before it is self-sustaining financially. I’m a little bit more optimistic than that, but the truth is, there is a lot of money, time, and resources that need to come from outside before a church can be planted.

So with all of this outside support coming in, what do those of us who are planting churches have to give in return? Is your church plant only receiving and never giving back?

Our church plant has attempted to answer those questions by identifying six ways we can give back to our church planting supporters (we call them planting partners) and stay connected with them.

Six Ways to Stay Connected to Your Sponsoring Church

1. Write a Monthly Newsletter – This doesn’t have to be fancy and it shouldn’t be too long. The goal of your newsletter shouldn’t be fundraising but story telling, vision casting, and glory giving. You are giving back to your supporters when you share stories of transformation and spiritual victories. I think every newsletter, whether it is mailed or emailed should include pictures, stories, praises, and prayer requests. Here’s our most recent newsletter from March to give you an idea. You can sign up for our newsletter here.

2. Pray for the Sponsoring Church – Keep a prayer list of the struggles and needs of your sponsoring church. If you are asking them to pray for you, pray for them too! If we only receive and never give, we get the mentality that our field is more important than the field our sponsoring church is plowing. They have prayer concerns and we should be lifting them up to our Father. After all, He is the One who establishes His church.

3. Share a Church Planting Vision – Your church plant may be the only touch the sponsoring church has with Acts 1:8 types of activities. Use your influence to provide a context where THEY can grow in their understanding of mission activity. For example, if the sponsoring church sends a mission team, train them how to do “evangelism that results in new churches” (HT: JD Payne). The short-term goal is to get a little bit of help in your own neighborhood. The long-term goal is to train them and equip them to engage in the same sorts of activity in their own neighborhood and around the world for the rest of their lives. Make it fun! Teach them! Equip them! Make an impact!

4. Send Them a Video – Related to sharing a church planting vision is the idea of sending a video of greetings, thanks, praise and bullet point prayer requests to your supporters. With vimeo and youtube and a $150 pocket camcorder you can record a simple video that personally addresses your sponsoring church. Keep it under a couple of minutes and they might even show it on Sunday morning to the whole congregation. Or, they might just send an email to their members with a link. Either way, you are able to connect with them in a more meaningful way than just a monthly newsletter. Here’s an example of a friend of mine in New York who has planted a church and stays connected with sponsoring churches with short video clips.

5. Visit Them In Person – Take a week each year to travel and visit as many churches who are supporting you as possible. This will solidify their support when they can hear from you in person. On the other hand, don’t do too much of this because it can be extremely costly and time consuming. If your supporters are in more than a handful of states, or if they are only sending you $25 a month, it might not be worth spending $1000 to fly around and visiting everyone in person (not to belittle the churches that can only send $25/mo). If it works out for you to preach or share your vision at a sponsoring church, then it’s just that much more exposure they have to what God is doing through you in your neighborhood!

6. Build a Website – Any church in the 21st century should invest at least $500 into developing a great website. Even as a church leader I wouldn’t even give a church the time of day if I can’t find them on the internet (okay, I need to exhibit a little more grace than that) but hopefully my hyperbole reveals how important it is for an unchurched seeker to be able to check you out from a distance before diving in headfirst! So, build a website but you should also build a site that is geared towards your supporters. You can set one up in minutes with wordpress or blogger and start to communicate your vision, values, strategy, and demographics of your neighborhood so supporters can get a sense of what they are giving to. Here’s our website as an example.

Bonus Ways to Stay Connected

Many of our supporters are also connected with us here at ChurchETHOS and on Twitter and Facebook. One day maybe I’ll write a separate post on how these tools are helpful for church planters.

So these are six things we have decided to do to stay connected with church planting supporters. Do you think it’s important to stay connected? Or do you feel entitled because your area is the lostest of the lost? What are you doing to stay connected with your supporters?

Further Reading:

• One Month to a New Church Plant
• Bridge Element Website Design for Church Planters
• God’s Faithfulness in Church Planting