Assessment Center Evaluates Potential Church Planters

PORTLAND, OR (March 9, 2004) - Being a Covenant church planter is not easy, but the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) gives potential pastors an evaluation that can help them on their way.

A total of 50 people (including 17 church planter candidates) gathered at First Covenant Church from February 18-21 for an ECC church planters assessment that was administered by the denomination's Department of Church Growth and Evangelism. The assessors included Church Growth and Evangelism church planting administrators Dave Olson and Don Davenport, conference superintendents and associate superintendents and Department of the Ordered Ministry administrator Carol Lawson.

Church planting candidates were invited to the assessment through a recommendation by a conference or region. Some are currently serving as Covenant pastors, youth pastors or work in other venues. Others came from outside the Covenant, having been recommended by a Covenant pastor or administrator. People from California and Florida and everywhere in between were among the participants. Participants ranged in ages from 20somethings to those in the 50s.

"We appreciate the new partnership that has been formed between our department and the Department of Church Growth and Evangelism on this topic," said Lawson, who has been involved in five such assessments. "I think the focus on the group discernment process - which is similar to our department's view of multi-voiced call - is valuable. The intensity for both the participants and the assessors can be difficult to describe. But it's designed for a purpose and you can get a lot done in a short period of time."

The ECC has been conducting church planting assessments since 1992, said Olson. Since that time, Covenant church plants have added greatly to the denomination. Currently, more than 30 percent of those worshiping in Covenant congregations come from churches that began within the last dozen years. A total of 32 churches were planted by the denomination in 2003 and in a 10-year period, the ethnic churches in the Covenant more than doubled in number because of the many different multiethnic congregations being planted. Church planting is important to the Covenant and it is reflected in the thorough way in which participants are assessed.

The winter 2004 assessment was no less thorough. Included in the recent version were group case study discussions of church planting scenarios, opportunities for assessors and participants to hear about how some had been called to ministry, and interviews with assessors. There were also seminars pertaining to data researched by a pair of evaluators from Minnesota. Participants had been sent personality tests and career-related tests to fill out weeks before the assessment. The evaluators deciphered how one's personality styles and ministry gifts could affect the planting of a church. Spouses were also evaluated extensively to discern whether their gifts and personalities would complement the church planters as they shared in ministry.

Overall, participants desiring to plant a Covenant church were given three scenarios: (1) they were accepted wholeheartedly as church planters; (2) they were "conditionally recommended" - potentially a successful candidate for church planting - after following certain conditions before beginning a church plant; or (3) they were told that they should not become a church planter at this time. In all cases, evaluators pointed out the ministry gifts they saw in the church planter candidates and the reasons why they were being given the evaluation they were given.

Church planting assessment is an inexact science, but efforts are made to ensure a fair and comprehensive evaluation. While candidates enjoyed an afternoon and evening together at a local restaurant, evaluators spent more than eight hours discussing the participants before interviewing them the following morning. Olson called it "offering outside perspective as you pray about whether you are called to be a church planter." A previous participant now planting a church in Canada, Mark Crate, called it a blessing.

"It was the defining moment for me as I considered a call to church planting," said Crate, who now serves as pastor of Lighthouse Church in Sarnia, Ontario. "You go through this ministry assessment and it is constantly a reminder that you were called."

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