Strategic Plan for Metro Praise
This paper is written as a strategic plan for the church I pastor, Metro Praise. Metro Praise church was started five years ago in my house with my wife and one new believer. Today, we have over 100 attendees and 60+ disciples meeting every week. Therefore, this paper is a summery of what strategy we have and how the books read in this class have made it better.
Overview of the Strategic Plan for Metro Praise
The basic strategy of Metro Praise goes directly in line with what “Simple Church” promotes, “design a simple process of discipleship in your church” (p. 3). Metro Praise has the following for strategy, (1) Vision, (2) Strategy, (3) Ministries, and (4) Goals.
Here is a basic description of each one: (1) Vision: Loving God, Loving People, (2) Strategy: Connect, Mentor, and Send, (3) Ministries: 10 acts of service found in Acts 2:42-47, and (4) Goals: 100,000 disciples in Chicago with 50 churches and 500 around the world.
Vision of Metro Praise
The vision of Metro Praise comes from Jesus’ greatest commands found in Matthew 22:27-29, “Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.” We define “Loving God” as (a) worshipping and adoring Him in passionate worship and (b) obeying His commands. We define “Loving People” as (a) helping them in their time of need and (b) preaching the Gospel to them.
Strategy for Discipleship for Metro Praise
The process or strategy for discipleship is a three-step process that takes a first time visitor to being a trained leader in the church. First, “connect” means to (a) connect to God, (b) connect to a good church, and (c) stay connected. The way we do this is by following up on visitors with a phone call, email, and or facebook contact. We then invite them to a small group and begin ask them if they want to start our “101 book,” which is a book I wrote on the “Seven Steps to Spiritual Growth.” The book is done “one-on-one” with the new member and covers subjects like what it means to be saved, how to live holy, and what baptism and communion are.
Second, “mentor” is the step the member will go to after they graduate the “101 book” and it is done in a classroom setting for a year. I wrote the book and it is called, “Disciples that Make Disciples” by Joe Wyrostek. They will meet once a week and do the following, (a) an assignment in the book, (b) pray for an hour a day, (c) memorize a verse a week, (d) evangelize for an hour every week, (e) have an accountability session with a peer once a week, (f) attend a small group, (g) come to the Sunday prayer meetings, and (h) live holy. During this class they will be expected to be (a) teachable, (b) accountable, (c) hungry for God, and (d) a servant.
Lastly, “send” is the last part of our three-step process where we graduate the disciple from the class and place them into ministry either as an elder or deacon. If we believe they are capable of leading a small group and bring people through the “101 book” they will be given the office of an elder. The elders have monthly meetings with the pastor every 3rd Saturday for planning, accountability, and encouragement. If the disciple shows they are a leader, but still need to be in a small group, they will be appointed as a deacon and assist the elder in charge of the small group until they grow in the place of an elder and start their own small group. The deacons are accountable to the elders every month and act as their assistants in the small group.
Ministries of Metro Praise
These are the ways we “serve God and people” as outlined in Acts 2:42-47,
“They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
We found ten main ministries in this list that we as a church can imitate which are (1) Services: “meet together in the temple,” (2) Small groups: “broke bread in their homes,” (3) Discipleship: “devoted themselves to the apostles teaching,” (4) Evangelism: “the Lord added to their number daily,” (5) Prayer Meetings: “devoted themselves to… prayer,” (6) Community Service: “gave to anyone as he had need,” (7) Bible College Training: “devoted themselves to the apostles teaching,” (8) Church Planting: “the Lord added to their number daily,” (9) Mission Trips: “the Lord added to their number daily,” (10) Fellowship: “they devoted themselves to … the fellowship.”
Lessons Learned from Strategic Planning Books
Here are some key points that I gained from the class “Strategic Planning:” (1) Simple Church: Stay focused, (2) Natural Church Development: Smaller churches on average are healthier than larger churches, (3) The Purpose Driven Church: Five Circles of Commitment, and (4) Good to Great: The flywheel principle.
Simple Church Lesson: This book did a great job of conveying that “less is more” when it comes to the church world. I specifically enjoyed their section on staying focused. The authors share this great nugget about staying focused, “Stay focused on your simple process. Say no to everything else” (p. 200). I have learned this the hard way. We have done “good” things in the church, but they took away our focus from the “God” things were supposed to do. For example: we tried to do services for college-aged students that took away our focus from discipleship and Latino-speaking services that distracted us from building one solid congregation.
Natural Church Development Lesson: The lessoned learned in this book was very important because I believe God wants Metro Praise to be a large church planting movement. Meaning, Metro Praise churches will be over 1,000 disciples in each location. However, I learned that “church size turned out to be the third strongest negative factor” in soul winning (p. 46). Thus, we as a church must keep the “smallness” of the church as we grow in numbers. We cannot lose our focus or intensity of soul winning and discipleship for every member.
The Purpose Driven Church Lesson: Rick Warren did a great job of helping me understand the different types of people a church will encounter. Though I did not agree with all of his methods I did learn from the chart of “Five Circles of Commitment” (p. 130). Which are, starting from the outer circle moving inwards, (a) Community: Unchurched, (b) Crowd: Regular Attendees, (c) Congregation: Members, (d) Committed: Maturing Members, and (e) Core: Lay Ministers. These circles can help us on how to reach and disciple the people through the circles. For example: Metro Praise can develop methods of evangelism to reach the “crowd” and even have special services geared at reaching them. Then, Metro Praise can move people from the crowd (visitors) to the congregation (101 and small group), to committed (201 class), and lastly to core (elder or deacon).
Good to Great Lesson: The “flywheel” lesson is basic, “no matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformation never happened in one fell swoop…. Good to great comes about by a cumulative process-step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel-that adds up to sustained and spectacular results” (p. 165). Metro Praise can learn from this that we do not have to throw a “hail Mary pass” to win the game, but simply keep driving the ball forward and making first downs. The flywheel encourages us to continue on the track God gave us and over time, if we do not give up we will reap a great harvest!
In Conclusion
I truly enjoyed reading the above-mentioned books in this class. I was truly blessed to hear confirmed many of the things I had discovered in prayer alone with God. Also, I was inspired to continue to place the working of the Holy Spirit in the forefront of our church because the power of the Holy Ghost is lacking in many of today’s “successful churches.” Meaning, not many if any of the churches studied, shared on how “casting out demons,” “healings,” and “deep-prophetic worship” played a pivotal part in their church growth. Therefore, being a “Spirit-filled” pastor of a “Pentecostal empowered movement” I desire to take the best of the “Spirit-light” churches and bring them into our “Spirit-full” churches. I believe these strategies can help us as Charismatics to be more organized!
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