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. Assessment Emcee Workbook 3
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. Assessment Emcee Workbook 4
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. Assessment Emcee Workbook 5
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 Assessment Emcee Workbook 6
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. Assessment Emcee Workbook 7
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%. Assessment Emcee Workbook 8
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. Assessment Emcee Workbook 9