New Churches Podcast | Season 1 | Episode 661

Building A Church Planting Family

Clint Clifton, Colby Garman & Keith Wieser

Episode 661: When the Lord casts a vision of planting a network of multiplying churches, the planter finds himself sorting through all sorts of unexpected developments. Host Clint Clifton discusses some of the unique aspects of building a church planting “family” with Colby Garman, teaching ministries elder at Pillar Church in Dumfries, Virginia, and Keith Wieser, who leads Resonate Church in Pullman, Washington, and the Resonate collegiate church planting network.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

  • Some of the challenges of creating continuity among network churches, while still allowing them to express their uniqueness
  • The trick of changing the scale of disciple-making to actually creating church planters
  • Ideas for structuring the network organization and making decisions as a group
  • The degree to which network churches should reflect franchise branding
  • The challenge of dealing with the subtraction aspect of multiplication
  • The importance of changing your mindset from linear to non-linear growth

Helpful Resources:

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Sharable Quotes (#NewChurches):

A lot of our motivation to keep the churches connected was we wanted people to have some continuity of experience in a military lifestyle where they experienced very low continuity. @ColbyGarman

Our process was going back and saying, “How do we get to having someone go out and plant the church?” and trying to reverse engineer that. @KeithWieser

How do you create something where the process of building disciples, you just change the scale to create a church planter? @KeithWieser

Our goal from the beginning was a network of generations of disciples. So they are connected to that individual who discipled them. Their planting church is really connected through that discipleship chain. @KeithWieser

From the beginning, we we decided we were just naturally organic. We wanted the commonality to be created by being trained within our churches. @ColbyGarman

The relationships are the glue that holds our network together. The reason we want to keep in this network is because we love one another. @ClintJClifton

The way we gather and discipleship-oriented structures are very similar. There are some things that are non-negotiables. @KeithWieser

We want to help military families feel like they’re walking into the same family, like going to a cousin’s house. You’re in the same family but there’s a lot of differences. @ColbyGarman

One of the most challenging things for us is being able to say what is the actual process versus the product and are we unified around the product? @KeithWieser

I went to a project and it wasn’t the way I would do it. Someone discovered something so much better and I’ve got to figure out how to help them to see the end and not do it like I would do it. @KeithWieser

Do I pursue you the path to multiplication or do I pursue the path to growth? @ClintJClifton

Multiplication looks like subtraction at the very beginning, and that’s the hard thing to be able to help people press through. @KeithWieser

The math doesn’t lie, and this is the math Jesus used from the very beginning. @KeithWieser

If you keep leaders to yourself, they sort of spoil. Whereas if you send them away, they prosper. God develops them in an incredible way that He wouldn’t have if they just stayed as a leader all the time. @ClintJClifton

There’s moments where you’re not even sure if this is going to work out, and then you see them get put into that crucible and that crucible does more for them than I could have ever done. @KeithWieser

Published on April 26, 2022

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New Churches Podcast

The New Churches podcast offers practical answers to your real ministry questions. We aren’t going to provide lofty pie-in-the-sky theories. Instead, we are going to help you in your real ministry context, with your real thoughts, questions, and issues.

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Meet the Authors

Clint Clifton

Clint Clifton passed away on January 12, 2023, as a result of a small plane crash. Clint and his wife, Jennifer, had been married since 2000 and have five children. He completed a B.A. from The Baptist College of Florida and an M.A. from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. Clint founded Pillar Church in Dumfries, Virginia, in 2005. He oversaw the fruitful church planting efforts of Pillar Church and served as Senior Director of Resource and Research Strategy for the North American Mission Board.

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Colby Garman

Colby Garman oversees the teaching ministries of Pillar Church of Dumfries and has co-founded several church planting organizations, including the Praetorian Project and the Iceland Project. Before coming to Pillar, Colby served as an associate pastor at Stafford (Va.) Baptist Church (the church that planted Pillar Church). In 2008, the Garmans served for two years in Iceland with the International Mission Board. Colby is a graduate of Liberty University, where he earned a B.A. in Biblical Studies, and Biola University, where he earned an M.A. in Christian Apologetics.

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Keith Wieser

Keith Wieser is Lead Pastor of Resonate Church, a network churches focused on and around universities. Resonate started in 2007 at Washington State University and has multiplied to 16 different churches across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Utah. Keith primarily focuses on developing strategy to reach, equip and send the next generation from the university setting. Keith works for the North American Mission Board as a Collegiate Church Planting Catalyst. Keith and his wife Paige and 3 kids (Karson, Karis, Karter) live in Pullman, WA.

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