Needs Assessment: Key Pre-Launch Strategy
What a view from the room here in Estes Park, CO. I have been enjoying time with the church planting leaders of the Christian Churches and getting a real education on state of the art planting. So much has been learned about how to get planters ready and how to support them through effective networks, since my early Bible College days when I was watching and listening to planting pioneers like Ralph Moore in CA. Significant effort goes into planter selection and preparation–but we can miss an important opportunity to start truly missional churches if we spend the entire pre-launch period focusing on mechanics. I am convinced that this period can also yield some incredibly important outcomes in the depth of planter insight into culture, the growth of a larger plant team, and the development of credibility and large numbers of community relationships.
How can the pre-launch produce all these outcomes? The answer is–When the planter has tools that take the focus off of mechanics and onto relationships and understanding culture. Typically we use demographic and lifestyle reports, but that can become just another task on the checklist. The use of a needs assessment as a first step in a larger strategy for pre-launch community service, can help the planter toward these important missional outcomes. Traditional needs assessments come from the domain of professional social workers and public agencies, but the essential work of a needs assessment is about making people connections in a listening mode. Compassion by Design has reworked the best parts of a needs assessment so that it allows a church planting team to spend intentional time building insights into the culture and making people connections. The team part is important–although the reformated needs assessment can be completed just by the planter and spouse, engaging the entire team in this process will bring them all along as community connectors.
Some very important things happen in the hearts of the team as they are interviewing and surveying the community–not only do they meet potentially hundreds of new people in a short amount of time, but they also hear the heartaches and values of the community in which they are working to plant. This insight allows the ministries and (hopefully) community service efforts of the church planting team to be more clearly focused on felt needs in the community, and along with a number of other benefits, introduces the church to the community in a way that says “we are here to serve” in a very credible way. A needs assessment approached properly can help propel the new church to a much healthier start.
Check out the new needs assessment kit at http://www.compassionbydesign.org/church-planting.html