How to Start a Church

There are 3 areas that we are currently focusing on during this season at Awaken. They all gear around Sunday morning and they are; Connections, Program and Children. As I have been studying church planting, I have realized that these three areas must be done well or you will just have a mediocre church. (there area more areas, but these are our current focus)

Connections: Connections is connecting people to our church. What are you first thoughts on a church when you walk in? This has much to do with the Connections Ministry. Here are some questions we are thinking about: Do you have greeters in place? Do you give something to first time guests? Is what your giving them good enough? Is it too much? Do you greeters walk people to the worship service, kids area or the students area? Do we buy umbrellas and meet people at their cars when its raining or get a golf cart (that would be fun)? Do we have a follow up plan? DO we show love to the people that are walking through the doors? Do we have greeters that know how to greet or just let anyone who is willing do it? Much more...

Program: How is the service? How does the opening of the service work? Does the pastor welcome everyone or does another leader in the church welcome? Who leads worship? What kind of songs? How many songs? When do you do the songs; before, after preaching; both? How does the pastor communicate? Is the message thought provoking, funny, engaging, use object lessons, relevant, good, helpful, applicable and more? Do you have someone give a testimony, use media, play a special song, and do you have a reflection time? Much more...

Children: You could have the best welcoming/Connections team in your city and have a phenomenal program, but if you do not take care of peoples kids, then you have failed. Are our kids safe, have fun, creative, prepared? Have we done background checks, made T-Shirts, have a follow up plan? Are good effective people that love children in place to serve? Much more...

This is just the beginning, the tip of the ice berg. We are going to churches on Sunday mornings and studying these things. If you want to be a loving church that does things well, then you must make sure a lot of time and thought goes into each area of ministry. These things must be done well and have leaders that do them well. Poring your time into the things that matter show people in your community that you care about them. These are just a few things that we are looking into to start our church.

Take note: We have not launched our church. These are just observations that I have learned through study, asking questions to church planters, reading blogs, prayer, the Bible and more.