gent church plant

A green assessment

On Thursday 18 February we boarded our plain with much expectation. We were on our way to attend the Every Nation Church Planting Assessment Centre in Nashville, Tennessee.  The kids were great on the plane – I think our excitement was contagious.  Everything went really smooth, even though Yvette developed a throat infection on the plane.  

We faced two very long and intense days of assessment, back to back, followed by a half day.  The kids were taken care of by an American nanny during this time – a first for them.  I think we coped brilliantly with the challenge as a family.  The assessment was everything and so much more than we ever expected.  Along with 9 other couples from around America and Europe, we were taken through a pretty intense schedule to see if we are “hard wired” for church planting. It was an amazing experience.

There were 16 points we were assessed on... from our vision and church planting philosophy to character and marriage.  Every aspect of our being was turned over and inside out.  We had to do various small group exercises and faced intense questioning by a panel at least three times.  At the end, the grand finale was when the whole group ... all 20 of us, had to work together to form a church planting strategy and presentation to plant 5 churches in seven years in the city of Seattle. This then had to be presented to a board who would consider the opportunity for investment.

We had so much fun.  I feel privileged to have met so many strong amazing leaders and hope to be able to stay in touch with them long into the future.

The assessment started on the Monday and on the Thursday we were given our results. There were three possible scenarios - a green light, a yellow light, or a red light. Green means the assessors feel that someone is hard wired by God to pioneer and lead a new church plant and everything in their lives are at a place where they can go ahead to do this right away. Yellow  means that all the qualities of a church planter is hard wired into you and that you are the right person to do the job, but there are certain things in your life that you need to give attention to before you go ahead to do this.  Red means that you are not hard wired to be the senior leader of a new church plant and should consider another role in the ministry.  As the assessors put it with red, “you might be called to the ministry, but this is not the right lane for you to be in”.

At the end of the assessment centre Yvette and I were given a green light and encouraged to go ahead and plant this church in Belgium. It was very encouraging for us.  We know God has clearly called us to this and celebrate the fact that he wired us for this challenge.

I can honestly say that this has been the most valuable experience in terms of preparation we’ve ever had in the ministry, along with our experience leading the church in Slough over the last year.  We have learned an invaluable amount and feel greatly blessed with such amazing leaders around us. 

So while I am now recovering from a throat infection, we are making our plans to go up to Michigan for a visit to some of our dear friends and ministry partners that we haven’t seen in too long.