One of the 13 core competencies of a church planter is “building body cohesiveness.” Dr. Charles Ridley, developer of the church planter profile, refers to this one as “the glue.” This competency highlights that hard-to-put -your-finger-on quality of being able to...
The term Dr. Charles Ridley uses for this essential church planter competency is “contextualizing.” A planter who is responsive to the community, “discerns the culture of the local context and implements redemptive ministries that meet the needs of people.”...
An essential quality for church planters is that he or she has a visionizing capacity. This doesn’t just mean having dreams. There are lots of dreamers. But a church planter has the dream and gets others to buy in and live it out. It means taking the dream and...
In this blog entry, let’s zero in on one church planter competency: resilience. The official definition from the Church Planter Assessment is: Resilience—stays the course in the face of major setbacks, disappointments, and opposition. Dr. Charles Ridley,...
I used to think you could coach and train almost anyone into anything. But after many years of being as a practitioner of both, I now see that you need to have some starting-point qualities from which to work. Without these qualities, the church planter is eventually...
I was recently teaching a church planter assessment course in Phoenix, and it reminded me of how timeless the role of church planter really is. How the Church Planter Behavioral Assessment Profile Began Dr. Charles Ridley spearheaded a qualitative research project in...
I just connected with Craig Whitney, executive director of ELI Church Planting. Here are a few highlights from what he’s been learning lately (shared by permission). Experience counts. To those who believe God is calling them to start a church, Whitney says, “The best...
