Church Planting

“Jesus sent them ahead of him to every place he intended to go” Luke 10:1

The Rocky Mountain Ministry Network is passionate about reaching unsaved people in Colorado and Utah. To help do this, we desire to partner with divinely called and passionate church planters. We have been working hard for the past few years developing a strategy to reach, fund, and partner with church planters to establish new works in a target list of cities. This four-year process has involved the following.

1. PHILOSOPHICAL PRIORITIES. We have prayerfully developed our philosophy of planting churches in the context of community. We want to partner with church planters who value our sense of community while also requiring existing works to value the contribution of church planters.

2. FINANCIAL POSITIONING. We have worked hard to create a robust church planting fund to facilitate our vision.

3. STRIKE ZONE. We have identified criteria that will determine what we believe to be our “strike zone.” That criterion includes communities …

Where Spirit-filled churches do not exist or are under-represented.
Whose populations are predominantly middle-class communities, growing and large enough to support new or additional works?
Developed enough to contain one or more public schools.
Whose industry can sustain a healthy church and provide an adequate pastoral salary.

4. TARGET COMMUNITIES.. The Network partnered with MissionInsight to do extensive demographic research to identify zip codes that meet our criteria and then narrowed that list down to 36 cities or communities. Learn more about their data sources at this link. The Network will promote these 36 targeted communities, seek to partner with planters who have a divine call to plant there, and assist in financing approved plants. Dull summaries and demographic profiles for each target location can be found below.

5. APPROVAL PROCESS. The Network developed a simple process for considering the approval of church plants and their funding. Although we welcome church plants in Colorado and Utah, we will only fund plants on our target list. Five collaborative things take place in the approval process.

Meeting with the Superintendent. The first step is for the potential church planter to initiate a meeting with Superintendent Roncone. Gene budgets time each week to talk with church planters and appointments can be made through Rhonda, his admin at this email. Download the discussion points here.
Submission of a letter of intent with a written plan. The church planter presents the Superintendent with a letter of intent (LOI), a strategic plan outlining the proposed timeline, specific location, requests, and list of referrals. You can download two samples of this document at this link.
Mutual commitment to community. The church planter and Network sign a memo of understanding outlining their commitment to plant in the context of community. Download that document here.
Presbytery approval. The church planter is introduced to the Network presbytery and approved for planting and or funding assistance.
Launch and introduction to the Network. The church planter and church are added to the Network roster and introduced to the Network to receive prayer, support, and financial assistance.

6. RESOURCING PLANTER. The Network will help the planters facilitate training, coaching, and a supportive community of ministers in the general area to facilitate a successful launch. The following organizations are recommended as excellent training, assessment, and coaching partners to help you on the way. We encourage you to use multiple resource organizations in your journey.

Church Multiplication Network. Church Multiplication Network is the official church planting arm of the U.S. Assemblies of God, dedicated to planting healthy, Spirit-empowered churches in every community in the United States. To do this, we work to strategically equip, fund, and network new faith communities.

Association of Relational Churches. ARC works with church planters and church leaders to provide support, guidance, and resources to launch and grow life-giving churches. ARC has become not only a movement but a collection of many “tribes” – all with a focus to see a life-giving church in every community in the world. Today, some of ARC’s church plants have become the largest and fastest-growing churches in the USA.

Stadia. Stadia began in the fall of 2003 when leaders of the Northern California Evangelistic Association (NCEA) met with leaders of the Church Development Fund (CDF) to create a nationwide church planting organization called Stadia. Since then, Stadia and its partners have planted churches around the world and mobilized the sponsorship of over 30,000 children in impoverished communities.
Urban Islands Project. Urban islands gives strategic focus to planting churches in the urban centers of America. They provide church planting knowledge and support to leaders and peers who are impacting urban neighborhoods with the gospel.

Passion Planting. Passion Planting helps church planters discover their aptitude by providing planter assessments, training, project management, and coaching.

Now it is time to broadcast our “Macedonian Call” to planters feeling an apostolic calling to reach lost people and to, “Come over and help us” (Acts 16:9). If you believe God may be calling you to plant a church in one of the network’s target communities listed below, please review the information provided and reach out to me. I would love to hear more about your call and ministry story.

Gene Roncone
Rocky Mountain Ministry Network
District Superintendent (aka “helper”).