Get Trained by Leading Missional Practitioners to Start a Church From Scratch
Flipping Church Planting Paradigms
Self-Guided Video Course
We have to change the way we start new churches
You want to plant a healthy, vibrant, missional church that changes your community, yourself, and the lives of those you lead. But so many of the models we’ve learned don’t actually lead us toward flourishing but toward the destruction of community and personal burnout. The good news is that we can re-learn the historical, faithful and innovative seasons of starting new churches so that we can avoid replicating destructive patterns and instead promote the flourishing and health of the church we’re seeking to start.
Imagine what life will be like
when you are leading a church that you helped to start
- You are avoiding power traps and you are leading your church with integrity
- You are surrounded by a trusted core team of leaders who are all contributing their gifts
- Your communal rhythms are restoring relationships with God, people and earth
- You have confidence that your team can adapt to upcoming challenges
Learn How to Start a Church You Love to Lead
Over the course of four weeks, you’ll transform the way you start new churches
from formula to formation,
from specialized to Spirit-led,
and from consumerism to communion, community and commission.
VIDEO COURSE LESSONS
Get Trained by Your Professors
In your interactive video lessons, your professors will train you to think differently about church starting. Ask questions, interact over the material, and transform your approach to starting a new church.
DOWNLOADABLE WORKSHEETS
Develop an Imagination for Your Context
There is more going on in your life and leadership than you could ever process in a class. You’ll get a packet of worksheets that are designed to help you unpack what this training means for your context.
COMMUNITY INTERACTION
Collaborate with Other Church Starters
The journey of starting a church can feel lonely. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to connect with other church starters in different contexts. In this course, you’ll learn in mutual relationships with others on our course platform.
Meet Your New Professors
None of us needs experts to craft theories in ivory towers. Church starters need models and practitioners who can share stories and frameworks from their experience on the ground, faithfully innovating new pathways forward. Each of our professors is someone you’ll want to learn from and model as you embark on the journey of starting a church.
Ines Velasquez-McBryde
LESSON 3
Dr. Tamisha Tyler
LESSON 4
What You Can Expect to Learn
In this four-week course, you’ll get trained by five professors who will form you as a missional church starter.
Lesson 1
Discerning Power and Authority
by Mark Charles
Mark Charles is a dynamic and thought-provoking public speaker, author, and consultant. The son of an American woman (of Dutch heritage) and a Navajo man, he speaks with insight into the complexities of American history regarding race, culture, and faith in order to help forge a path of healing and conciliation for the nation. He is the co-author of the book, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. Mark served on the board of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) and is a former Board of Trustee member of the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA). Mark also consults with the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW), has served as the pastor of the Christian Indian Center in Denver CO and is a founding partner of a national conference for Native students called “Would Jesus Eat Frybread?” (CRU, IVCF and CICW). In 2020 Mark ran as an independent candidate for the presidency of the United States, advocating for a Truth and Conciliation Commission – a formal and national dialogue on issues of race, gender, and class.
Yá’át’ééh. My name is Mark Charles. I am the son of Evelyn and Theodore Charles. My mother is American of Dutch heritage and my father is Navajo. I am a dual citizen of the United States and the Navajo Nation. I live with my wife Rachel and our three children on Piscataway lands near the Potomac river on the eastern side of Turtle Island (also known as Washington DC). I am both thrilled and honored to teach the first lesson in this course on Church planting.
Especially if you are an American Christian you have most likely been trained to understand the world, and the Scriptures, through a paradigm of power. My goal for this first lesson is to challenge that paradigm and provide you with the tools necessary to see through a paradigm of authority.
This lesson does not allow us the space to cover all of the context for understanding these two paradigms, but if you would like to examine it further I have provided some resources that you can access in the pre-work for this lesson. This pre-work is not required, but it will give you a better understanding of how colonial power gained such a strong foothold in the Church.
I am excited to have the opportunity to share this lesson with you. I hope it will challenge your thinking and strengthen your discernment process for the important work of planting a Church.
–Mark Charles
Power is having the ability to act, and authority involves the right of jurisdiction (the permission to act). Power requires demonstration whereas authority is inherent, not requiring demonstration. The world is obsessed with power and the Church is no different, teaching that even Jesus operated out of power. The first half of this lesson will challenge this paradigm by reviewing many key moments throughout Christ’s ministry where he operated out of authority and not power.
In the second half of this lesson I will teach, through the indigenous method of storytelling, about the dangers of using power for Gospel work. Power is easily corruptible and truth requires a level of purity. There is a reason why Jesus (who was given all power and all authority) consistently defaulted to using authority throughout his ministry rather than relying on demonstrations of his power.
The end of the lesson will include a discussion about how the choices we make during the discernment process of Church planting regarding power and authority will have a major impact on the culture of the Church, the truths it speaks, and the type of hope it ultimately offers to the community.
Lesson 2
Launching a Missional Culture and Team
by Carl Johnson
Carl is a church planter with an urban focus and a passion for helping people. He has planted grassroots local communities and focuses on worker coop businesses that start missional communities. Carl has a track record for an urban focus and a passion for grassroots community development and empowering workers through coop businesses. He helps grow church planting networks and missional communities across the nation Beyond the business of church planting – bridging multicultural communities and worker coop businesses to create missional communities. Carl is pioneering change-making initiatives to build impactful relationships and networks. Connect with him to learn more about his work and how you can join the movement!
carl@decapoliscitycooperative.com
Welcome Learner,
First, a big thank you!
We know learning from different people is a difficult task. Who is this teacher and what are their accolades? My joy for you is that you will disrupt and/or create radical innovation with a team of folks. Margaret Mead said you only need a handful of people to change the world. I am a disruptor and a student of radical movements. I hope as you engage with me you will leave complacency at the door. We only have an hour to build a defining moment to impact your dream of missional culture.
I hope you take the time to read this letter and click on my links. Listen to my podcast and check our websites. Hoping what is next will only be a beginning of the change you desire to see. I am your professor and partner. I hope to be a guide that will be a muse and an antagonist. We want to see a new frontier of thought provoking leaders disrupting with missional innovation.
–Rev. Carl Johnson
As an American Christian you have most likely been trained to understand the world, and the Scriptures, through a paradigm of power. My goal for this first lesson is to challenge that paradigm and provide you with the tools necessary to see through a paradigm of authority.
This lesson does not allow us the space to cover all of the context for understanding these two paradigms, but if you would like to examine it further I have provided some resources that you can access in the pre-work for this lesson. This pre-work is not required, but it will give you a better understanding of how colonial power gained such a strong foothold in the Church.
I am excited to have the opportunity to share this lesson with you. I hope it will challenge your thinking and strengthen your discernment process for the important work of planting a Church.
–Mark Charles
We often find ourselves lost in the culture of starting something in the city. Many times we find other folks’ diagrams and wonder if people will join us. How will you lead a multicultural church with folks who will cry and laugh with you? How will you find people who are willing to suffer for Jesus to solve a redemptive problem?
This is what building culture and team actually looks like in the everyday life of a missional leader. How do you build a culture of unleashing missional impulse? We will talk about creating an inclusive vision, How to disciple this core of folks who will organize for social change. How you will define culture and vision together.
We will end our time with proven steps on starting or implementing a missional culture that grows and multiplies.
Lesson 3
Becoming Communities of the Spirit
by Jennifer Guerra Aldana and Ines Velasquez-McBryde
Rev. Inés Velásquez-McBryde, M.Div is a pastor, preacher, reconciler and speaker. She is Co-Lead pastor and founder of The Church We Hope For, planting a multiethnic church with her co-pastor, Bobby Harrison, in Pasadena, California. Inés earned her Master of Divinity at Fuller Seminary and has 22 years of combined experience in church planting and pastoral staff leadership in multiethnic churches. Inés is originally from Nicaragua and has lived in the USA for over 20 years. She has been married to Rob for 18 years and loves being a soccer mom to their son Nash. She is passionate about the full inclusion of women in pastoral leadership, racial reconciliation & justicia. She loves story-telling over a good café con leche.
Jennifer A. Guerra Aldana, M.Div originally from Guatemala, grew up in Southern California as the daughter of church planters. Jennifer received her B.A in Social Work from Point Loma Nazarene University and worked with various populations in San Diego county. She has pastored bilingual, intergenerational and intercultural ministries and earned her Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Higher Education from Azusa Pacific University, is the Manager of special projects and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Fuller Youth Institute and is a professor in the School of Theology at PLNU. Her passions include borderland conversations, intercultural youth spiritual formation, bilingual ministries, and theological education.
¡Saludos!
We are thrilled to be with you for this third session. We are friends and co-conspirators in Kin-dom work who love the church. We met in seminary and have continued to be friends through the years. We both have experience in planting churches and walk into this session with you as fellow sojourners in this work. We look forward to our time together. In order to spend our time well, please take a look at the pre-work assigned and come ready to engage with the content. We also encourage you to connect with others on our Mighty Networks platform through comments and conversation. Looking forward to our time together.
Bendiciones,
Inés Velásquez-McBryde & Jennifer Guerra Aldana
Where do we begin? What will we do? Will anyone join? Are all common and natural questions to ask as we move from having formed a team to inviting others to join what God is doing. In this session, we will confront our need to have everything planned out with certainty and be invited to step into a dance with the Spirit of God through rhythms of reflection and discernment. Together, we will unpack the importance of sentipensar, the myths we must carry in church planting and leave you with a reflection-action model to engage with as you launch your ministry.
Lesson 4
Navigating Change in a Post-Pandemic World
by Dr. Tamisha Tyler
Dr. Tamisha A. Tyler is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology and Culture, and Theopoetics at Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond, CA. As a coach and consultant, Dr. Tyler specializes in helping leaders navigate vocational discernment, and facilitates futuristic simulation workshops to help teams navigate change. A poet and liturgist, her work has been published in CIVA and Fuller Magazines, and Feminism in Religion. Her latest project focuses on the role of religion in the life and work of Octavia E. Butler.
Greetings friends,
I write to you as I look out the window of a cold rainy day in Richmond, Indiana. Of all the places a die-hard California girl could be, I never thought I’d be part of a teaching community in the Midwest, let alone have my whole life turn around in the span of only 6 months. But change does not wait until we are ready, it shifts as it wills, and we are caught up in its chaos. These last few years the world learned a lot about change. We had to adapt quickly and drastically, both in our personal lives and in our worshipping communities. On the other side, we recognize that our world has shifted. Or as Octavia Butler says, “all that you touch you change, all that you change changes you.”
As leaders, we often find that change is one of our most constant companions. In this course you will be invited into an exploratory space to help you to navigate those elements of change, offering you both language and tools to lead your communities. This class is shaped by the work of adrienne marie brown, specifically her work Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Shaping Worlds. I encourage you to purchase and read this work (and any of her work) as it is a great resource. I also invite you to listen to this VIDEO of her discussing her work. Please take the time to share and engage with one another via our Mighty Networks discussion page around the video and book. During our time together we will discuss elements of change and adaption and look at the correlation between risk and failure. We will also go through a simulation where we will be able to practice navigating change in community. Through elements of play, we will explore what a worshiping community face with great change would do to ease navigate that change well.
I am so looking forward to learning and discovering with you!
–Dr. Tamisha Tyler
If the past two years have taught us anything, it is that change is inevitable. The question is never a matter of if things will change, but when and how we will navigate it when it comes. Throughout this course, students will learn different approaches and techniques that follow the journey of church planting, from the spark of an idea to opening the doors of a community. This final course seeks to ask the question: how will we navigate change? In this course, students will learn about aspects of adaptation, understand the connection between risk and failure, and participate in a simulation that will provide hands on experience navigating change as a community. The goal of this course is to provide students with the language and tools necessary to lead their communities through change.
Flipping Church Planting Paradigms
Your Registration Includes
The 4-Season Framework
You don't need a formula or equation to start a church, but it is helpful to have healthy frameworks to keep you moving forward.
Four Video Lessons
You'll probably want to go back and watch each lesson again. The course platform will store all the video replays so you can review the material weeks or months later.
Building Community Rhythms Worksheet
Based on the teachings of Jennifer Guerra Aldana and Ines Velasquez-McBryde, Becoming Communities of the Spirit, this simple worksheet will help you discern what communal "ritmos" will define your new church.
Embracing the Rhythms of the Holy Spirit Worksheet
Also based on the teachings of Jennifer Guerra Aldana and Ines Velasquez-McBryde, this worksheet is designed to help you confront the myths that might be restricting you from being more flexible and answering the needs of your community.
How to Become an Adaptive Leader Worksheet
Based on Dr. Tamisha Tyler's teaching, Navigating Change in a Post-Pandemic World, this worksheet is designed to help you examine a problem in your life and approach it using dynamic, adaptive solutions.
How to Create an Inclusive Community Worksheet
Based on Carl Johnson's teaching, Launching a Missional Culture and Team, this worksheet is designed to help you create an inclusive vision around the community so you and your team can equip yourselves to respond to the issues around you.
Community Platform
Get to know other church starters in different contexts on our community platform where you can post, chat and interact.
Course Certificate
Get a certificate of completion when you finish the course that you can post on your profile or in a frame.
Course Outcomes
By the end of the course, you will…
Register for the Course
When you join the course, you get immediate access to the course platform. We packed as much as we could into this course so that you have everything you need, in a short period of time, to start a church on the right foot.
Training $497 Value
Gain access to leading missional practitioners during weekly trainings. Ask your questions, share your stories, and get input from faithful innovators who can teach you new ways of approaching the calling to start a church.
Coaching $125 Value
You’ll get to schedule a 1-on-1 coaching appointment with a Cyclical church starting coach so that you can contextualize your learning and get the help you need to move forward.
Community
On the course platform, you’ll meet other church starters from a diverse set of contexts as you chat, post, and interact in breakout groups. Learn from their stories as you share your own, and be reminded that you’re not the only one called to this!
Content
If you miss a lesson for some reason, simply watch the replay later. You’ll have lifetime access, so these clips, as well as other supplementary lesson material, will always be available to you on the course platform.
Certificate
Upon completion of the course, you’ll receive a certificate for church starting from Cyclical INC.
Flipping Church Planting Paradigms
A 4-Week Course for Church Starters-
4 Interactive Lessons
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Online Community
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Contextual Worksheets
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Certificate Upon Completion
100% Guarantee
If, after participating in all four lessons, you regret registering for the course, you can request your money back, no questions asked.
