The View From The Front

Getting Healthy – Staying Healthy – Growing – Multiplying

Improvement is not enough! Leading church analysts such as Lyle Schaller, George Barna and Mike Regele state that over 80% of American Protestant church are in plateau or decline. Improving a few ministries here and there is not enough. Significant change in organizational thinking and behavior must be pursued. The church leader long entrenched in institutional modes of operation must experience a change of heart and a change of mind that will be reflected in a return to Great Commission ministry. The American church is on the down side of lifecycle. That lifecycle must be broken. The Great Awakening must be reawakened. The time is now!

Project 6:15 has come of age! In January 2003, United Front Ministries launched a pilot of Project 6:15. The completion of the wall of Jerusalem noted in Nehemiah 6:15 serves as a metaphor for the redeveloped church. Just over 200 churches have enrolled in this two-year pilot, with the first 120 completing the process during the first quarter of 2005. Project 6:15 is a comprehensive process of systemic church redevelopment that combines spiritual renewal with strategic initiative. Churches are guided into lasting health and positioned for ongoing growth and multiplication. The pilot has provided a living laboratory of research and development that has resulted in the maturation of the redevelopment ministry of United Front President Ken Priddy birthed over ten years ago.

Project 6:15 is set to multiply! Throughout the pilot, Ken Priddy and Pat Bragg, United Front Vice-President and NCD Consultant, have provided the materials and have served as the pilot’s trainers, assessors and coaches. Project 6:15 is now set to move beyond the pilot and into multiplication. The vision of United Front Ministries is to guide and support regional and national church organizations in the development of internal church redevelopment systems, utilizing Project 6:15 as a primary vehicle. United Front’s ongoing role in the development and support of these systems will be to provide new and expanded materials, to administer the NCD Survey, and to train and coach trainers, assessors and coaches. Four stages will be employed:

Stage 1: United Front provides training, assessing and coaching.
Stage 2: United Front provides training and assessing. Organization provides coaching.
Stage 3: United Front provides training. Organization provides assessing and coaching.
Stage 4: Organization provides training, assessing and coaching.

Pastor assessment is coming! United Front is in discussions with the Center for Organizational & Ministry Development to develop an assessment tool for redevelopment pastors. Using United Front’s experience and Project 6:15 pilot data, the skills, knowledge, attitudes and giftedness of the effective redevelopment pastor will be identified and an assessment tool to measure these competencies will be created. This tool will then be used to identify potential redevelopment pastors or to identify strengths and weaknesses of pastors in place. Competency training will be created for strengthening.

Project 6:15

A lasting commitment to the comprehensive process
of systemic Church ReDevelopment that combines
spiritual renewal with strategic initiative

The cluster track groups a minimum of fifteen churches into a cluster of churches with geographic proximity. A vision team of pastor plus five leaders from each church meets for five one-day cluster sessions over a sixteen-month period. The first session is just for pastors and prepares them to lead their teams and their churches through the redevelopment process. Immediately following Cluster Session 1, each church is assessed using a four-part assessment process designed by United Front, including Getting the Facts, Getting the Story, Getting the Pulse and Getting the Picture (NCD Survey). The remaining four sessions are for the entire teams and deliver redevelopment training in increments. Between cluster sessions, vision teams are guided by COACHWORKS!, a comprehensive implementation manual that takes the guesswork out of application. Throughout the project, pastors have unlimited access to their Project 6:15 coaches via phone and email. The cost is $2400 per church, including the four-part assessment, five one-day training sessions, all training materials, COACHWORKS!, coaching, and United Front personnel expenses. In short, the cost is inclusive.

The Intensive Track groups a minimum of ten churches together that will share a sixteen-month timeline and a two-day training intensive. Prior to the intensive, three packets are sent to participating churches. P3: the Pastor Preparation Packet prepares the pastor for the role of leading the process. An overview is presented, foundational information is covered, and the pastor is guided in the process of assembling a vision team. The pastor then leads the vision team through P2: the Vision Team Preparation Packet in preparation for its role. Like P3, P2 provides both overview and information, but more importantly establishes the pastor as leader of the team and places vision team meetings into the routine. This is followed by P1: the Assessment Packet that contains a four-part assessment to be completed prior to the intensive. The two-day training intensive, at month four in the process, is eighteen hours of action packed training that covers the A-Z of church redevelopment. Following the intensive, vision teams are guided by COACHWORKS!, a comprehensive implementation manual that takes the guesswork out of application. A one-day wrap-up closes the project. Throughout, pastors have unlimited access to their Project 6:15 coaches via phone and email. The cost is $1800 per church, including the four-part assessment, the two-day intensive, all materials, COACHWORKS!, coaching, and United Front personnel expenses. In short, the cost is inclusive.

The Project 6:15 Interface

Though Project 6:15 is a comprehensive process, United Front recognizes the strategic importance of other methods and materials. We often encounter churches that have effectively used such methods and materials and that desire to include them in ongoing redevelopment efforts. United Front has studied the leading tools such as Natural Church Development and Alpha and has developed ways of interfacing them with Project 6:15.

Natural Church Development (NCD): United Front Vice-President Pat Bragg is a certified NCD Consultant. Pat oversees the administration of the NCD Survey as one part of our four-part assessment. The survey identifies a church’s general health and pinpoints its Minimum Factor. Project 6:15 interfaces with NCD by providing a strategic context for the strengthening of this Minimum Factor. As a church develops its Project 6:15 Ministry Action Plan (M.A.P.), it is guided into identifying its Essential Ministries, that small group of ministries that must be effective if the vision is to be fulfilled. Project 6:15 then directs the vision team to strengthen its Minimum Factor within the context of its Essential Ministries. This creates a strategic win-win as Essential Ministries are developed while the Minimum Factor is strengthened.

Growing a Healthy Church (GHC): There are numerous touch points between GHC and Project 6:15 providing ample opportunity for interfacing. For example, both GHC and Project 6:15 place the Great Commission in the biblical centerpiece. Project 6:15’s Progression of People Development, that moves people from contact to convert to disciple to servant to leader to multiplier, resonates with GHC’s disciple-making process of winning, building, equipping, sending, and multiplying. The M1-M7 Ministry Training of GHC can easily be used in Project 6:15’s Ministry Action Plan. GHC’s Environment for Growth interfaces with Project 6:15’s Foundations and both emphasize prayer, biblical literacy and challenging people to deeper levels of commitment and involvement. Both focus on Great Commission vision.

40 Days of Purpose: Many churches have embraced the 40 Days of Purpose program that has emerged from Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, a follow-up to his The Purpose Driven Church. This tool interfaces with Project 6:15 in a variety of ways. It can be used strategically to help develop the project’s second effective church habit, Effective Churches Focus On Bible Basics. It can be used as a discipling tool in the Progression of People Development. And it can be used to establish or develop a small groups ministry, especially important to the church whose Minimum Factor is Holistic Small Groups. Project 6:15 challenges those that utilize 40 Days of Purpose to consider strategically day forty-one and beyond.

Alpha Groups: Alpha Groups is another program widely embraced by today’s churches. These groups interface with Project 6:15 as a strategy that can be used at the Contact and Convert levels of the Progression of People Development and, just as 40 Days of Purpose, can help in establishing small groups ministry. Also, from a delivery standpoint, Alpha Groups can be used as ministry training. Project 6:15 asks, “What’s your Beta?” To be strategic, there must be a next step.