Strategy Lab for New Planters

Today was the final day for the tenth Kairos Strategy Lab. Six new planting projects trained for new churches in Seattle and Kennewick, WA; Phoenix, AZ; Temple, TX; Memphis, TN; and a new campus ministry at the Univ of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR).

Strategy Lab Prep
Fundraising: Kairos sends all our planters through the fundraising bootcamp taught by Support Raising Solutions. Most planters go through the SRS bootcamp before coming to Strategy Lab.

Pre-SLab Workbook: Strategy Lab is the first creation of a new church. What will this church be? Who will it serve? How will it connect with new to share the blessings of Jesus together? Planters develop answers to these questions as they work on their Basic Biblical Beliefs, mission, vision, and core values prior to lab. The lab workbook helps them develop their Kingdom Concept  (Will Mancini). The Kingdom Concept ties the planter to the reality of their planting site rather than the love affair that exists only in their own minds (see Easum and Griffith, chp. 3).

During Strategy Lab
Our Strategy Lab training helps the planters develop their ministry plans. We work the planters throught the three seasons of planting: Groundwork, Launch, and Grow.

Groundwork is the preparation work as the planter develops their vision, assesses their spiritual rhythms, fundraises, gains partners, and engages in coaching.

Launch is the season when the planter is on the field and raising their seed team, developing their financial system, engaging their growth engines, and developing their missional communities.

Grow is distant, three to four years in the future, so we just touch on this season. Since our goal is to see these new churches reach an average worship attendance of 200+ the grow season focuses on solving problems, developing 3-deep leadership systems, Natural Church Development, StratOp, and implementing Beyond 200 activities on a regular basis.

Post Lab
In the next thirty days the planters write their quarter million dollar ministry plan. One mantra we repeat over and over is this:

If it's only in your head it's just an idea, it's not a plan until it is written