The plan, the timing, and the core team.

Your team is you and God

When we were first planting and moving to New York, I can look back now and see that my trust was more in a team of people than it was in God. Building a great team is key. But first and foremost you have to have the revelation that your team is you and God. From that place, you can then build a great launch team.

God had to take me on a journey to get that. I was used to being on staff in a church that already had a team, people who were gifted and skilled to run services. Before we moved I wrote down the names of everyone I believed was coming with us, about thirty or forty people. None of them came. No one got their visas. No one got their jobs. The doors just kept slamming shut. What ended up starting the church was just Georgie and me.

That was my journey. Many planters bring a team with them, and that’s a real gift. But the principle is the same either way. Your team is you and God. And if that isn’t enough, you shouldn’t plant. In that season God said to me, stop writing names, I’ll pick your team with you. I started arguing with the Holy Spirit, how will you know if I don’t write down what I want? But he was testing my trust.

Walking through that lesson is how the concept of Dinner Parties was born. We couldn’t start with a service because we didn’t have a team. God gave Georgie and me a vision for a Dinner Party. Dinner parties are a universal idea, but using one as the way to start a church, as the primary way to build small groups, as the DNA of the whole thing, that was something different. And that is what has built our church. I don’t think we would have come up with it if we’d had a full team from the start.

Our eight-month rhythm

I’m sharing our timeline not as a template, but to show the principles of what we did and why.

We started in February of 2012 with a Dinner Party. We held that Dinner Party every week, and that was what we had for the first four months. In March we started visiting other churches in the city as a team, going to lunch afterward and sharing one thing we loved and one thing we thought we could be that we hadn’t seen. In April we held a one-off Easter service, which was a great gauge for us two months in. We filled our venue and started to build real momentum.

In June we launched once-a-month preview services alongside our weekly Dinner Parties. Preview services were full Sunday services, giving the community a taste of what was coming and building up our invitation culture, our worship team, our first-impressions team. On the Sundays we didn’t have a preview service, we gathered for Sunday Stories. A different member of the community would share theirs. That started a love for stories in our church, a comfortability with vulnerability, and it drew in so many people in those first months. People were hungry for real.

Then in September we launched weekly Sunday services. September 22nd became the official launch of our church. From then on we met every Sunday, and that month we multiplied into two Dinner Parties, then nine by December.

The biggest key isn’t the dates or the exact events. It’s the clarity, strategy, and momentum you build within your timeline. Your launch timing will depend on the team-building you do before you launch.

Ready and flexible

We were open to launching later than September if we didn’t feel we had enough momentum. I had September in my heart from a year before, but I never controlled the timeline just to meet that goal. I wanted to make sure the launch would sustain.

Be ready and be flexible in the launch season. You have to have a clear plan, goals, timeline, and strategy. And you have to let God change it.

What you don’t want is a false start. So many planters have that. They start before they’re ready, they can’t sustain weekly services, and momentum dies. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the hype of launch Sunday and lose the five Sundays after it. Don’t plan just for the launch, plan for the Sunday that’s five weeks later. Make sure the excitement is still there.

There’s no perfect science for knowing when you’re ready. The guidelines we use and suggest are: around 40 people committed to your launch team, and over 120 people showing up to monthly gatherings or preview services. Those metrics helped us gauge the launch season and feel confidence going weekly.

Building your core team

Just like God designed the body, much of what we’re able to do physically relies on a strong core. Every workout instructor will yell at you to strengthen your core, utilize your core, because it stabilizes, strengthens, and gives you longevity. The same applies to your church. You are only as strong as your core. In seasons of resistance and pressure, your core is what will hold you through.

Building a core team has to be a mix of trusting God with the people he’s bringing you, even when you can’t yet see what he sees, and also having eyes open to look beyond who you might have assumed were the “right” people.

The key scripture on this for me is 2 Corinthians 5. From now on we regard no one according to the flesh. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. We have to see people differently than we have before. We have to see them the way Christ sees them. With that lens, you start to build the team God has for you.

Don’t look for ready-made

We can easily fixate on ready-made people. It’s a gift if someone on your core team is already gifted and reliable. But often it’s people you have to build. When Jesus picked his disciples, they weren’t the ones the rabbis were choosing. They weren’t the most put-together. They were kind of the left-out ones. Sometimes we overlook the people who were there from day one and God says, these are the ones I want you to pour into.

The guys I thought would be with me, the ones I thought had the gift to lean on early, ended up being the least reliable. That may not be your story, but I share it to say, sometimes what looks best because the need is great isn’t what sticks it out with you. The ones that were there, that we chose to pour into, that kept showing up, that were hungry to learn, those became our core. They weren’t pretending. They were leaning into our leadership. There has to be a willingness to grow. If a person already thinks they’ve arrived, it’s hard to shape and build from there.

Character over gifting

Sometimes what looks best to start because the need is so great aren’t the ones that last. Look for character in a person over the gift they bring. The people that aren’t pretending. The ones willing to grow. The ones that are teachable.

So often we miss the gold hidden in the rock because it doesn’t look like much initially. But our burden is people. Our mission is people. We have to see them as Christ sees them and build from there. It’s the Peters of the world that God chooses to build his church. See everyone in that light, give people a chance, and you’ll see who are the ones to build with, who are the ones to keep close, and who to release and run alongside.

Pray for specific people

A huge part of building team is prayer. Pray for specific people to arrive. Maybe they’ll be part of your core, or maybe they’ll just be integral in the start, filling a gifting you need. Rather than trying to muster up all the skills yourself, rely on a team. Pray for a team. Pray for specific holes you see.

When we had first moved and were running Dinner Parties and launching Sundays, we didn’t have a graphic designer. Instead of praying for one, I decided I could do it myself. I’d design the business card. In the middle of trying, I got frustrated, because I was operating outside my gifting. Georgie said, you need to go and pray for this, rather than encouraging me to keep going in the design. I went and prayed specifically for a graphic designer. That week a new guy walked into our church, a skilled creative with a heart to build. We created cutting-edge designs in that first year because of him, and hundreds of people were reached through the creativity he led.

Be specific with your prayers. Don’t do it all on your own. See the potential in everyone. Build a core that will sustain and bring health to your future growing church.