Opening Instruction Guide

Supplies Needed
• Slides
• Microphone for Emcee
• Opening Script
• A clock Visible to Emcee to stay on time

Process
• At 5 minutes before the start time let everyone know you’re about to start.
• Start exactly on time by welcoming everyone.

Emcee Objectives & Measures for Opening

The welcome is the most essential step for setting the right tone for the two-day Assessment
Retreat. The Emcee will have no more than 30 minutes to welcome the candidates, give an
overview of the LAUNCH model and give instructions for the day.

3 Objectives:
• Provide a warm, friendly welcome that sets the candidates at ease
• Measures
• Candidates laughed within the first 60 seconds.
• Emcee maintained strong eye contact in the first 3 minutes.
• Delivered content with a conversational tone yet demonstrated passion in their
voice.

• Give a clear explanation of the LAUNCH model

• Measures
• Stayed in sync with the Power Point presentation.
• Delivered the overview of LAUNCH in under 12 minutes.
• Share a story/testimony from one aspect of the model.

• Help them focus on the fact God wants to speak to them during these 2 days
• Measures
• Shared a compelling story that captured and maintained the candidates’
attention.
• Gave a fresh thought from the Word that God has spoken to you. This is
important in helping the content you deliver feel “fresh”.
• Gave them instructions to take notes throughout.

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Opening Script

1. Good morning everyone, welcome to the LAUNCH Assessment Retreat! My name is

____________________ and I’m _____________________. We are excited that you are
here and honored to be a part of the journey God has you on.

2. Church planting can be one of the scariest, most dangerous, outrageous, craziest, anxiety
filled, yet exciting, ventures you will ever encounter. And before anyone goes to plant a
church you have to know, that you know, that you know God is calling you to do this.

3. That’s why the purpose of our retreat is to help you wrestle with the level of readiness and
confirmation of the calling to church planting. And our hope is that all of you walk away
with special confirmation about your next steps.

4. Now we know some of you are coming in nervous. Some of you your husband told you he
was taking you on a Retreat! You were excited and now you show up and find out it’s an
assessment retreat. But we want you to relax because we want this to be a positive growth
experience for you and your wife.

5. By being here you’re getting a once in a lifetime chance to sit and talk about yourself for
two whole days. You will be interacting with an incredible team of people. We have a
counselor, marriage counselor, leadership specialist, church planter wife, experienced
church planter, experienced communicator all here to work with you and get to know you
and give you feedback on your personal development. So take advantage of this incredible
opportunity.

INTRO ASSESSMENT TEAM

6. As we get started I want to introduce you to a few special people.

7. <Introduce Host Church Pastor if applicable. Introduce the Assessment Center Director
and Coordinator. Introduce the Co-Emcee if applicable>

8. I’d like to ask our team to come up so you can see who they are. So we’re going to do a
RAPID FIRE introduction. <Have team come up, line up and just say their name and
assessor role.> So as you can see they are pretty harmless group of people AND they’re
excited about spending time with you. In fact, they are here because they love church
planters and they’re volunteering their time to be here. They’ve been studying your Pre-
Assessment reports and praying for you for about a month now and are excited about
hearing your story.

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Personal Introductions
Know we’d love to get to know you. So we’re going to do another RAPID FIRE round of
introductions. We would like for you to stand up as a couple and the husband tell us your name
and where you are from, and the wife give us your name and tell us how long you’ve been
married. This will help us get to know who is in the room and then in just a few moments we’re
going to do some table discussions so you can begin to get to know each other better.

Table Discussion #1
Now we want to help you to start to get to know each other around your tables. So we’re going to
give you 6 minutes to answer two questions. Make sure the husband and the wife get to answer
each question. So around your tables we want you to share the answer to these two questions:

• What is your biggest joy in ministry right now?

• What is your biggest challenge in ministry right now?

Three Beliefs
Okay time is up. Well, we are here over these two days to talk about the call to church planting.
At LAUNCH, there are three things that we believe about church planting that really drive us.

1 - We believe that church planting is the most effective strategy of reaching

the lost.
1. According to the US Census Bureau the US Population will grow by over 30 million by
2020.

2. In their book Viral Churches Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird tell us that research indicates that
new churches reach more lost people. A church plant that is three years or younger will
baptize 10 new believers per 100 attenders, while a church that is 15 years or older only
baptizes less than 2 new believers per 100 attenders.

2 - We believe Church’s Plant Churches

1. We believe church’s plant churches, not individuals, networks or denominations.

2. When we started LAUNCH, we decided that our primary focus would not be on Church
Planters. Instead, we would serve Church Planting Churches. This is why we ask each of
you to give us the name and information of your sending church. We want to engage them
in the process. So when you signed up not only did we send you homework assignments
but we sent your parent church assignments to meet with you and discuss your homework
with you.

3. So our focus is to serve Parent churches to help them assess the readiness of their church
plant candidate.

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 4. We believe this is essential and strategic because Lifeway research shows less than 4%
reproduced themselves by being a sending church to a new church. Could you imagine if
only 4% of US couples reproduced themselves? Our nation would be gone in a generation.
That is the threat to the North American Church today.

5. This is unfortunate because one of the success indicators of healthy church plants is the
fact that they have an existing church sending them out and supporting them. You cannot
do church planting alone; you need a supportive, loving, encouraging body of believers
who believes in you.

3 - We believe that leadership is essential to plant healthy, reproducing

churches.
1. Research conducted with over 10 different denominations indicates that 32% of church
plants close their doors within the first 4 years. We also know that in recent years 3,500
churches close their doors every year. And only 4,000 new churches are starting. Many of
these churches are failing or closing their doors not because of spiritual issues but
because of leadership issues. It is a failure to know how to lead well.

2. Share a Personal Story (This is the one Mac shares)

a. I remember visiting a church planter’s opening Sunday one time. Cindy and I drove
over … 10 cars in parking lot, one greeter, lonely quiet hallway. Nice auditorium with
only 22 people sitting in it. We looked for the pastor, but couldn’t find him. We
assumed he was either in the bathroom throwing up OR out back where wife was
warming up the car for quick get away. The service started, he came out an
preached and was very visibly shaken. I times it; he only preached for 17 minutes.
After it was over, I looked at Cindy and said “Let’s stay behind because we have to
provide emotional CPR on this kid”. When we were back in our car I told Cindy,
“that should never happen”. The truth was, it wasn’t a spiritual issue; it wasn’t even
a contextual issue. It was a leadership issue.

TABLE DISCUSSION #2
Okay lets go into another time of Table discussion and we want both the husband and wife to
share the answer to these two questions: We will give you six minutes.

• Why is church planting so important?

• Why do you want to plant a church?

Transition
1. So again, this is why Assessment is so important. We’ve now assessed hundreds of
planters and we’ve seen all kinds of things. Sometimes this retreat adds fuel to an already
burning fire. Sometimes we have couples who walk away with confirmation that they aren’t

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 supposed to go plant. And other times we have couples who recognize their calling needs
to season for a while before they make the big move.

2. So we are glad you are here and are praying God will give you a special word of
confirmation about your next steps with church planting.

How to get the Most out of The Assessment Retreat

So as we get started there are a few things we’d like to share with you to help you get the
most out of this two-day experience.

1 - Open Your Heart, Mind and Soul up to this process

1. The fact that you are here and submitting to this process says a lot about you. It indicates
that you are teachable and are open to growth and you want to slow down enough to make
sure you are as ready as possible for church planting. For some of you, you’re not sure
church planting is for you, so you’re going through this process to seek out further
confirmation and clarity. So I commend you for going through the Assessment.

2. We know that you’re coming in maybe a little anxious, curious, and unsure. So I want to
tell you right up front - Please relax. We want to spend the next two days getting to know
you. Getting to know your story. Getting to know your vision. And the best way for that to
happen is for you to relax, be yourself, be open and honest.

3. We have assembled a great group of assessors who are here because they love planters.
These are individuals with specific areas of expertise who love investing in church
planters. Most of those in this group are here as volunteers. They are a group of people
who want to hear about your journey and then provide insights into that journey. They are
for you and they want to get to know the real you.

4. Over the next two days you will be talking about yourself a lot, a whole lot!! You will be sick
of talking about yourself. But take advantage of this opportunity. You will be talking to a
professional counselor, a trained Marriage facilitator, a Church planting coach,
experienced church plant wives, and seasoned business leaders. So be open, honest and
take advantage of this opportunity to gain insights from your time here.

2 - Expect God to do Something Special in Your Life

1. You’ll notice that we refer to our Assessments as an “Assessment Retreat”. We believe
God has you here for a reason; we try to create an atmosphere where you can hear from
God. We try to create space within the 2 days where you can think, pray and write a
personal growth plan.

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 2. We want you to know we’ve had a team of prayer warriors praying for you as a couple over
you. Each couple has been adopted by a particular prayer team member.

3. Share a Personal Story about the value of Hearing from God. Below is the Story Mac
shares at this point.
Years ago I was at a church that did something called the 40-day Adventure every year.
Each year the whole church would go on this journey together and we would have specific
spiritual practices the program would direct us to do. One year we did something called
God Sightings. Every day for 40 days we had to look for and journal about our God
sightings - times when God was speaking to us in small ways and big ways. It brought new
life to our people because we started hearing more clearly from God. I’m praying you will
have some major God sightings at this retreat.

4. Here’s the thing I know for sure…God is always speaking, but we’re not always
listening. So tune out distractions and tune in your heart to what God may want to say to
you during the next 48 hours.

3 - Add to Your Growth Plan

1. Prior to coming you put together a Personal Growth Plan. We will be talking about that
more tomorrow afternoon.

2. Throughout this time we want you to take your PERSONAL GROWTH PLAN, which
we’ve printed for you in the folders you received when you came in. Keep it with you. Add
notes to it. We want each of you to walk away with a solid PLAN. We will add to this plan
at your Follow Up, and will recommend that your Parent Church use this to help you in
your leadership growth.

Table Discussion #3
Okay lets go into another time of Table discussion and we want both the husband and wife to
share the answer to these two questions: You have six minutes.

• What do you hope to get from this assessment experience?

• What was the most revealing thing to you from the Pre-Assessment work or Online
Inventories?

Assessment Overview
1. Here is how our assessment works. We have a team of assessors each with a different area
of expertise. Over the next two days you will be interacting with them. They will be asking you
a ton of questions. Now these are great people…and they are listening but they will also be
taking notes as they talk to you.

2. At the end of the 2 days our assessors gather up and we review each candidate and decide
on 1 of 4 outcomes. We traditionally pass about 53%.

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 § Ready – These are individuals who our team sense has a strong call to plant.
They typically have begun to build a team and are 6-18 months from actually
launching a new church

§ Ready with Conditions – These are individuals that again our team sense have
a strong calling to plant, they may have a team and have some things in motion,
however we identify a couple of things that are CAUTION flags for us. Nothing
serious enough to say don’t go plant but enough that we put additional
requirements on them as they enter our training.

§ Further Development Needed– These are individuals we sense are early in

their calling to plant. Also we sense there are things that are a concern enough
that we recommend they work on a personal growth plan and seek further
development before entering our training or planting

§ Cautioned – These are individuals our team do not clearly see or sense the
calling on their life at this time. OR there are leadership or personal issues we
feel they need to deal with before considering church planting. Typically we
recommend these individuals not plant or at least take it off their radar for a few
years.

3. Inside your digital notebooks you will see a schedule. Let’s go over three important things you
need to know about your schedule.
a. Interviews are 45-minute blocks. It’s really important that you be there on time
because the 45 minutes will go by quicker than you think. At the 40-minute mark
you’ll hear a knock, which means you have 5 minutes remaining. Your assessor will
begin to wrap up your time. Then you and your spouse will step outside the room
and have 5 minutes to answer 3 questions in your Personal Growth Plan folder.
These are designed to help you process the highlights of that interview.
b. Times marked as “Free Time” indicate that you have a break. Rest, talk with others,
use it to further develop your growth plan. Whatever you need.
c. We need both the planters and spouses to engage fully in every activity that is listed
on your schedule. We won’t be able to give you a final recommendation if either of
you miss any of the interviews or exercises. Remember, your schedule is different
from everyone else’s so you will need to be sure you keep an eye on your own
schedule that was sent to you in your digital notebook.

We want you to know we are here not to partner with your church planting…but to
partner with God’s calling. Some of you may discover this is not for you through this
process. Some of you may self-eliminate. Some of you it will burn deeper and more
convincing.

So we are glad you are here! We are going to take a 10 minute break and then we will
go into our first session where we will be talking about the first LAUNCH Leadership
Competency: Identify and Confirm a Passionate sense of Calling.

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