New Works Pastor - Scott Honess and his wife Sally
Scott came on staff at Prince of Peace church in August 2012. His primary role is to develop new ministries and lead in church planting. His success has been due to the many good people at Prince of Peace who are hungry to serve. Are you wired to serve? If you want to know more about Church Planting or how you can get involved, contact him here - 440-669-6837 or send him an email
Scott came on staff at Prince of Peace church in August 2012. His primary role is to develop new ministries and lead in church planting. His success has been due to the many good people at Prince of Peace who are hungry to serve. Are you wired to serve? If you want to know more about Church Planting or how you can get involved, contact him here - 440-669-6837 or send him an email
How is this Church Planting thing going to work?
Heard someone ask "How does Prince of Peace plan to plant churches?" It's a great question. We can't afford to neglect what God is doing or go where God is calling. Nor can we do things the way USA churches have done for the past 100 years or so. By that, I mean sending a person to seminary for 4-7 years, and then ordaining that person to do all the ministry. Jesus never did that. Neither did Paul, the most high profile church planter in the New Testament. What do we need to plant a church?
1. God's Call. We need a call, an open door in a community. This is usually the result of prayer, trying a lot of doors and talking to a lot of people and more prayer. Prince of Peace identified Scott Honess in 2012 as the point person in that role. He is our first New Works Pastor. We are praying for more. He may never have the role of Campus Pastor, because God has called him to be like Paul, searching out new territory and utilizing his apostolic gift of launching churches in new places. The New Works pastor is opening doors in new communities, asking, "How can we help?" They cultivate relationships and keep an eye open for meeting places. Scott did a wonderful job in Geauga county. With the help of Steve Baird, they checked every conceivable meeting place, and to our surprise we found that buying the property in Chesterland was the most economical and preferred option. That is not likely to happen next. It has taken a long time to get things ready, and we don't want that to be a problem in the future. Once things seemed well in hand, and long before Chesterland was launched, Scott began listening and looking for the next place(s) to begin work. Is it Willoughby, Madison? How about Painesville? Maybe it's with the biker community. We aren't certain, so we begin by sowing seeds, planting the idea of starting churches in many areas and watching to see which ones start to grow. Right now, the seeds have just been planted, it will take time to determine which need the most care. When we do that, Scott and Ken will focus their attention on developing a leadership team.
2. The Leadership Team. Most churches call a pastor someone who "does it all." Preaching, teaching, leading, cleaning, hospital visiting, organizing, making the bulletin, you get the picture. That is not biblical. I Cor. 12 and Rom. 12 talk about a team of people in the church using their gifts to make the church happen. We look for men and women with leadership gifts. If we wait until we can afford to hire full time people to be the "everything pastor" we won't be able to plant more than one church every 7 years or so. We aim to do something different. We begin with training a lot of people with skills that are useful as Elders, Campus Pastors and Teaching Team. The multi-site model launches sites led by Campus Pastors, often 2 or 3 people who volunteer their time and talent to lead the church. They are the "face with the place." They have a handle on what is going on, how to get involved. If you have questions, ask the Campus Pastor. They will not preach every week, some will hardly preach at all if they are called to do different things. They will connect and lead people at that location in the mission to "Love God and Bless People." They will meet often with the lead pastor to keep the vision, mission and purposes of the church lined up. The Campus Pastors are greatly assisted by other pastors called Elders. Together they oversee the ministry needs of the church and every leader pours themselves into an apprentice, someone who will be able to do their job someday soon. We will avoid hiring staff from the outside because we want to raise up leaders with our own DNA.
3. A Teaching Team. This is a team of teachers who will preach at each site. This prevents the church from being primarily "personality driven" as many churches are. It also develops more and better teachers for the church as a whole. It frees up the Campus Pastors to lead and develop people and to oversee ministry. Because many on the teaching team volunteer their time, we free up resources for mission. They meet regularly for continued education, to sharpen their preaching gifts, and to develop a message with a strong "Big Idea" and "Next Step." People on the Teaching Team have completed a course of study and are under the supervision of the Lead Pastor.
4. Lead Pastor. The lead pastor is the guardian of the vision and mission of the church. No one is more directly responsible to listen to God for the church's direction than the Lead Pastor. As a multi-site church, the Lead Pastor will need to be visible in every site and especially meet with the leadership teams of every site. Pastors Kevin and Luann Sowers serve that role in Chesterland, Pastor Shelley serves that role in Mentor. In order to plant more churches we will need to raise up more Campus Pastors.
Heard someone ask "How does Prince of Peace plan to plant churches?" It's a great question. We can't afford to neglect what God is doing or go where God is calling. Nor can we do things the way USA churches have done for the past 100 years or so. By that, I mean sending a person to seminary for 4-7 years, and then ordaining that person to do all the ministry. Jesus never did that. Neither did Paul, the most high profile church planter in the New Testament. What do we need to plant a church?
1. God's Call. We need a call, an open door in a community. This is usually the result of prayer, trying a lot of doors and talking to a lot of people and more prayer. Prince of Peace identified Scott Honess in 2012 as the point person in that role. He is our first New Works Pastor. We are praying for more. He may never have the role of Campus Pastor, because God has called him to be like Paul, searching out new territory and utilizing his apostolic gift of launching churches in new places. The New Works pastor is opening doors in new communities, asking, "How can we help?" They cultivate relationships and keep an eye open for meeting places. Scott did a wonderful job in Geauga county. With the help of Steve Baird, they checked every conceivable meeting place, and to our surprise we found that buying the property in Chesterland was the most economical and preferred option. That is not likely to happen next. It has taken a long time to get things ready, and we don't want that to be a problem in the future. Once things seemed well in hand, and long before Chesterland was launched, Scott began listening and looking for the next place(s) to begin work. Is it Willoughby, Madison? How about Painesville? Maybe it's with the biker community. We aren't certain, so we begin by sowing seeds, planting the idea of starting churches in many areas and watching to see which ones start to grow. Right now, the seeds have just been planted, it will take time to determine which need the most care. When we do that, Scott and Ken will focus their attention on developing a leadership team.
2. The Leadership Team. Most churches call a pastor someone who "does it all." Preaching, teaching, leading, cleaning, hospital visiting, organizing, making the bulletin, you get the picture. That is not biblical. I Cor. 12 and Rom. 12 talk about a team of people in the church using their gifts to make the church happen. We look for men and women with leadership gifts. If we wait until we can afford to hire full time people to be the "everything pastor" we won't be able to plant more than one church every 7 years or so. We aim to do something different. We begin with training a lot of people with skills that are useful as Elders, Campus Pastors and Teaching Team. The multi-site model launches sites led by Campus Pastors, often 2 or 3 people who volunteer their time and talent to lead the church. They are the "face with the place." They have a handle on what is going on, how to get involved. If you have questions, ask the Campus Pastor. They will not preach every week, some will hardly preach at all if they are called to do different things. They will connect and lead people at that location in the mission to "Love God and Bless People." They will meet often with the lead pastor to keep the vision, mission and purposes of the church lined up. The Campus Pastors are greatly assisted by other pastors called Elders. Together they oversee the ministry needs of the church and every leader pours themselves into an apprentice, someone who will be able to do their job someday soon. We will avoid hiring staff from the outside because we want to raise up leaders with our own DNA.
3. A Teaching Team. This is a team of teachers who will preach at each site. This prevents the church from being primarily "personality driven" as many churches are. It also develops more and better teachers for the church as a whole. It frees up the Campus Pastors to lead and develop people and to oversee ministry. Because many on the teaching team volunteer their time, we free up resources for mission. They meet regularly for continued education, to sharpen their preaching gifts, and to develop a message with a strong "Big Idea" and "Next Step." People on the Teaching Team have completed a course of study and are under the supervision of the Lead Pastor.
4. Lead Pastor. The lead pastor is the guardian of the vision and mission of the church. No one is more directly responsible to listen to God for the church's direction than the Lead Pastor. As a multi-site church, the Lead Pastor will need to be visible in every site and especially meet with the leadership teams of every site. Pastors Kevin and Luann Sowers serve that role in Chesterland, Pastor Shelley serves that role in Mentor. In order to plant more churches we will need to raise up more Campus Pastors.
New Churches make a Huge Difference!
Prince of Peace is a church plant. Like every church since the days of Jesus, it is a gathering of believers on a mission to do God's work - to Love God and Bless People, to Make Disciples of all people. On July 29th the church unanimously elected to hire a New Works Pastor - Scott Honess will be the point man on new works and church planting. You can contact him here. We want to reach more people with the Good News of Jesus. In 2005 we planted a church in Painesville . Our goal is to plant more churches in the future using what is called a Multi-site model. This model shares Leadership, Mission, and Resources to ensure that new church plants grow to become healthy, church-planting reproducing churches themselves. We offer training and apprenticeships to those who want to help us in this ministry. For more information, contact Pastor Ken Sowers at (440) 478-6613 or at pastorkensowers@gmail.com |
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