Leadingchurch.com

The Egg

Let’s imagine Christian Reformed Home Missions decided it wanted to try to plant one “successful” church plant with large funding rather than spreading its resources among 20 to 30 startups. How much would it cost for a new church start-up done “right” by a denomination?

• Employment cost (salary, housing, health ins., pension, expenses, etc.) for your top drawer, ordained point leader: 90-130k a year.
• Worship leader cost: 80k
• Youth leader cost 80k
• 2 part time admin staff cost: 100k
• Rent for worship space, office space, ministry space: 120k
• Operating costs, publicity, etc. 100k

Total: 500k to 600k for year one. Assume this level of funding for 3 years.

These numbers might look HUGE to CRC people, but church planters will probably look at them and say “I wish I had that kind of support” while others would say “this is too small for our community”.

Looking for the Golden-Egg-Laying Goose

OK, now that you have your budget, the denomination’s next step is to find that point leader. Who should this person be? Let the politics begin.

• Male or female? Oh, don’t even go there…
• Ethnicity? We’re already creeping into the “target group” conversation, Did he/she grow up in western Michigan? African-American? Hispanic? Korean? Chinese? Anglo?
• Young or experienced? Young is attractive but track record is necessary.
• Methodological bias: Seeker? city center-hipster? Mark Driscoll new-Reformed-macho-grunge? CRC royalty bloodlines? Community developer? Ambiguously white-middle-class suburban?

How might we pick this person? CRHM search team? What might Synod weigh in? How might denominational special interests lean in?

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