There is no formal process to becoming a partner. It would be a lot easier if there were, but we feel the relationship is something God creates and to which He leads both parties. If we had everything systematized, we would find ourselves repeatedly implementing a program and planting simply because “that’s what we do”. Instead, we view this as a leader and lay-led initiative that we come alongside of versus a program that we originate. That’s why there’s no "A+B+C= Partnership".

This is not meant to be an exercise in frustration for you. We want to partner wherever and with whomever God orchestrates, but we also know that relationship is what He most cares about and that can’t be put onto a program’s timetable or simply be a step in the process. We do have a ministry model that we know well and experience in implementing it, but we definitely take the time to get to know the local people and for them to know us because these partnerships require a high level of trust and a solid relational foundation. We generally “travel” with a group for several months to a year and over that time it’s usually evidenced whether or not God is leading us together.

Our two main criteria are 1) Leadership and 2) Opportunity. From the leadership aspect, we tend to attract and work best with leaders who are interested in building a healthy organization (which churches have historically struggled in doing), attracting and equipping leaders (both staff and laypeople), and understand the strategic importance of our small groups ministry.

There’s a great saying that says, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you don’t care who gets the glory.” That humility is a key ingredient for the type of leaders with whom we desire to work. “Wins” are going to be people investigating God, accepting Christ, or making practical application in their lives. It won’t necessarily be that everyone in the community or region knows your name.

There’s also a vital need for leadership from the ranks of those supporting the church. The fuel for our ministry model is people volunteering to serve and leading and participating in small groups so that in experiencing life together, God has the opportunity to do what only He can do when we’re in community with one another. Additionally, we ask that people participate in what we call “invest and invite”. This is our strategy to acknowledge and be intentional with the relationships God has placed around us, so that as we reach out to others, they may in fact draw closer to God as our relationships with them deepen. In these ways, the church body can cooperate with the church staff in our mission to lead people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

In terms of opportunity, we are generally focused on larger metro areas at this point. Church planting is difficult no matter where you are or who you are. Let’s face it - we’re only looking to turn the tide of several centuries of culture that reinforced that church is for “religious” people, not simply people. That battle exists in every community whether a city of one million or one thousand. Given our need to be good stewards with our organizational capacity, we look to plant in places where we can reach the most people the fastest. At this point, that plays out by planting in larger cities. It’s our hope that Partners in these areas can become regional churches of influence in their own right, which then provide assistance and serve as real-life examples to those in smaller areas that would like to pattern a church after this model.

At this point, we do not offer an internship program. If we have agreed to partner with a group, we will then work in concert with them to provide an internship for the Lead Pastor and key staff, but we do not have a standing program ready to accept outside interns.

In the sense that the Partners often use video for the message portion of their service, yes, but we feel that label is a bit of a misnomer as the church is absolutely locally led, with a full-time staff, full children’s programming, numerous key environments, and local volunteers. Our only interest in this realm is putting the best possible message in front of people. We know that if things are working as we hope and people are “investing and inviting”, there will be people who have expended a great deal of relational capital to get their unbelieving co-worker, neighbor, etc. to finally attend that morning. The fact that Andy has a great communication gift and the rare gift to connect with both believer and unbeliever, is something we want to leverage in those moments because we know what’s at stake. It is not about promoting Andy. Rather, we know there’s a message that’s been delivered and tested, and it’s something people resonate with.

This does not at all preclude the local Lead Pastor from delivering live messages. In many instances, the Lead Pastor is absolutely the best messenger, and if they have the gift of communication, this model also provides them the opportunity to groom that gift by developing their own messages and speaking about the unique things for which God has given them a passion.

No. The DVD videos produced by North Point are intended for unlimited small group use, but a church, that is not a Strategic Partner, is limited two (2) series a year that can be shown in their main service. We know God owns all of this and we’re not being trying to be stingy, but there are actually strategic elements involved. First, remember that Andy is speaking to a local church and our partners who share the same ministry structure. There are references, exhortations and content that may confuse or frustrate people if taken out of that context. The second element is a witnessing opportunity that occurs as we develop our series. A sizable portion our graphic content, media elements and ideas are generated from outside of our staff through 3rd party vendors and relationships. Our heart is “what is the best?”, not “what’s the best a church can do?”. For that reason, we are often interacting with a wide swath of people and businesses. In that process, many become intrigued by our mission and how their work is being implemented. We have many stories of people who thought they just had another project, but instead wound up discovering God in the process. Because we desire this, not everything is produced in-house and it subsequently means that we don’t always have the ownership rights to freely distribute the work.

As explained above, we’re not interested in pushing video for video’s sake or promulgating Andy, but we do feel it’s proven to be highly effective in reaching people. We have settled on a standard that Partners show NP messages 60% of the time. In practice among the current Partners, the actual rate is more like 90%. We think that’s because they see firsthand that people are connecting with the message and lives are being changed. Also, the teams have enjoyed the ability it’s given them to reach and equip more leaders and build healthy, effective organizations in a shorter period of time because not as much organizational capacity is being drawn into message creation.

There’s no single answer for this one. Given that leadership and opportunity exist, it takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years or more for these things to develop. Because we believe leadership is needed in two realms: the Lead Pastor and a body of local support, we won’t generally move forward unless both exist and they rarely come along at the same time. Also, this effort is much bigger than any one person, so we find that a steady approach over time allows momentum to build and for God to bring along the components He desires in order to construct a relevant church that is reaching people for years to come.

Each of the Partners is independently governed and financed, however, we supply a helping hand in the early stages. From a governance standpoint, the Partners tend to install their initial elders from the ranks of NP staff and laypeople with a long history of NP involvement. To transition to local elders, many of the Lead Pastors have instituted a process of intentionally mentoring 6 people for 6-month installments over the course of 2 years. After that time, they will have a pool of 24 candidates from which to select their initial slate of elders. We feel this “seasoning” time provides the opportunity to make sure that the local body truly gets this ministry model and also weeds out those who bounce from church to church upset that folks won’t do ministry their way. This is vitally important because the elders can fire the Lead Pastor, so you want a high degree of confidence that there is agreement over what success is.

From a financial standpoint, there are a variety of elements at work. First, this is an expensive endeavor, especially with the high value we place on quality environments and production excellence. Second, this is hard work and requires full-time attention so it’s our preference to have full-time staff even before the church launches. Third, by nature and definition, operating a church is a non-profit endeavor, which means people are going to have to give us the funds to do ministry. Given that money usually follows vision, we realize that it will take a while to equip the people to “get” it, in terms of the vision and what a “win” is. All these elements imply some high initial costs, while at the same time, the local body has had little chance to “kick the tires” or “taste and see” that this church is good.

To that end, we collaborate with the local church to determine a funding plan that balances some funding from North Point along with a realistic expectation of how the local body will rise up to support the church. We develop financial projections and re-visit them at least every 6 months. What we hope to see is a declining dependence on NP funding at each interval and a rising level of support from the local body. We structure the borrowed NP monies as a zero interest loan that the Partner church begins to pay back once they achieve financial breakeven. This is not a moneymaker for us. Those monies are re-paid into a Partnership fund so that we can continue to support efforts like this around the country. In that sense, repayment from the Partner church is both missional and visionary.

We do not currently offer any clearinghouse functions as it pertains to employment at any of the Partners. That is a local decision for each church. If you have an interest in that arena, each of the Partners has a contact email on their websites with which they can receive inquiries.

Our goal is not to dictate or micromanage your programming, and we realize that the entire organization learns and benefits from the process of interpreting principles and methods into each local context. However, we have collected an organizational knowledge in creating, executing, and tweaking a model of ministry that is proving to be effective with some people. That’s not saying it’s the best model. It’s simply the one we know and the one from which we are qualified to teach and advise. That’s what you would expect from us.

Our desire is to come alongside people with whom we share a similar passion to reach people and agree that this method of doing so is appealing. We will share principles, concepts, and the best practices developed by peer Partner churches, but we trust the local church staff to be the experts on making it land in the community.

In answering this, we’ll use our organization’s mission and strategy statements, which may sound formulaic or, like many cases, have a nice ring to it as a result of a recent team offsite, but these statements actually do define and determine who we are as an organization. Our mission is to lead people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. “Growing” can mean discovering Him for the first time, re-discovering a faith from childhood or one you walked away from in college, learning as a longtime faithful follower how to be more and more transformed into His likeness, etc. Our strategy to accomplish this is by creating environments where people are encouraged and equipped to experience 1. Intimacy with God; 2. Community with Insiders (the Body); and 3. Influence with Outsiders (those outside the faith).

Ultimately, our goal is life change, for everyone regardless of the length of his or her walk with Christ. We feel that best happens within the context of a small group – a regular, committed time where groups of 6-8 individuals or 4-6 married couples meet weekly outside the walls of the church and work out what it means to live out their faith daily. Now, in our culture welcoming people into the doors and then asking them to commit to be in a small group that will meet for the next 12-24 months is a quantum leap. Knowing this, we realize that in order to lead people we have to create environments that progressively develop a trust and longing for God in their lives, as well as the trust that this organization is a place where they can safely and effectively do that.

To further refine what those environments might be, we use the analogy of a house. Specifically, the “Foyer”, “Living Room” and “Kitchen”. As the foyer serves as an entry place into your home, so it serves as an entry place into our church for guests and new friends. We would classify our Sunday service as a foyer environment, designed with guests in mind, but also as a celebratory time for the entire body that calls us their church home. The living room of your home often serves as a place where guests become friends. It’s a place where people begin to interact and get to know one another. In our church, a living room environment is smaller and more interactive than the foyer. It’s where friendships begin to form. Typically, they are based around seasons of life or particular interests. Finally, what’s usually the hub of your house - the place where meaningful conversations often take place with family and your closest friends? That’s right – the kitchen. Small groups are the kitchen environment for us. That’s the place where deep, honest conversation takes place, and again, where we feel life change is most likely to happen.

Thus, all of our programming and offerings are determined by our mission and filtered through that grid of environments. If it doesn’t help lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and fit into one of the environments where we feel people are most likely to discover or experience that, we won’t do it. Simple. And intentional. We know we aren’t supposed to be all things to all people. The Church corporately can be, but we as a church (emphasis on the little “c” church) are supposed to be faithful to how He has molded us and to the people He brings across our path. We feel that in operating a clear, focused model we can be most faithful in leading the people God has moved to connect with us and the best friend and ally to the myriad of churches which God uses to reach the amazing variety of people He has created.

On the main NP webpage, there is a tab entitled “Church Leaders” – www.northpoint.org/churchleaders. That page contains many suggested resources to help you and others learn more about how and why we do ministry the way we do. Also, if you live near any of the Partners, we would suggest visiting in order to get a realistic view of “a day in the life of a Partner”. There’s no need to contact or arrange anything with the Partner staff. In fact, on an initial visit, it may even be more beneficial to be completely anonymous, as that experience will most closely parallel the experience of a first-time visitor who may one day walk through the doors of your local church.

Also, the DVDs of NP series provide an easy way for you to share our teaching style to see if it resonates. Additionally, there are some DVDs we’ve produced that outline our strategy on various aspects of ministry. If you click on the North Point Store link, under Church Resources there’s a listing for North Point Strategy.

No, not formally. From the standpoint that we can only teach and advise from what we know, our organizational DNA is that of a startup. We’ve never had to turnaround or lead a church through massive directional changes. We began with a clean slate in 1995 and remain convinced that God has called us to this particular ministry model. Doesn’t mean it’s “right” or necessarily the best, but we know it’s what we’re supposed to be doing. Because of that certainty and our own organizational experience, we can really only guide efforts that start along the same path.

For existing churches, we’ve poured a lot of effort into creating practical resources and conferences that equip you with the nuts and bolts of this ministry. It is our hope that as the local experts, you can contextualize it to your community and lead in the way God has uniquely called you.

Leadership is needed from two camps: 1. Church staff, and 2. Lay leadership to support the church. Both are needed and we feel both must be in place in order for us to partner.

A Lead Pastor leads the Partner Church. More than anything else, this person must hold, cast and navigate the vision for the church. Additionally, we desire to fill out the staff team with leaders throughout the ranks. And, we want the leaders to do what leaders do best – lead. We have no desire in fostering the cult of personality that has so often plagued the local Church, i.e. the main pastor exercises total control over all decisions and all efforts only originate from his directives. We desire a church staff that is galvanized by our common vision and ministry model, but recognizes that every person on staff was created and uniquely gifted by God, so the best thing for the organization is to position people in roles where they can most live out their gifting. That means everyone gets to exercise them, not just those in the “upper ranks”. In this way, we feel we develop a unified, energized staff that is eager to take hold of the role God has called them to play.

For those who will support the Partner Church, we ask for the same commitment we ask from those who call North Point Community Church home – get involved! We ask people to partner with us by giving of their time, talents and treasure. Time – volunteer and serve somewhere, either on Sundays, in a small group, or some other ministry area. Talent – you possess talents uniquely gifted to you by God, partner with Him by discovering those talents and figuring out how to employ them. Treasure – we believe God is the ultimate owner of everything and we are simply stewards of what He has entrusted to us. Giving back to the local church through tithe or percentage giving signifies agreement with this and enables the church to execute the vision to which it has been called. When the local body gets involved in these ways, it is incredibly energizing and provides leadership that God intended for the Church.

Talk about it and share the vision. While you don’t want to start an insider-focused “church service” at your home, it’s healthy to see how God might be working in the hearts of others and come alongside one another to encourage “what could be” in your community. Don’t wall yourself off from the churches in your community either. In many cases, God might be moving in the hearts of local church staff to begin a new thing or even steer an existing church down a new path. If everyone simply throws their hands up every time they’re dissatisfied or bored with their local church, the Church misses out on change agents and can become stagnant. Remember too, the right question to ask about whether or not you should help in the effort to plant a new church is not “What do I like?” or “What program do I always wish we had?”, but instead, “Among the local landscape, is the church effective in introducing people to God or helping to grow their faith in relevant, practical ways?” Moving unhappy Christians around from church to church, is not what we’ve been called to be a part of. These efforts should be about building the Kingdom, not a zero-sum shuffle.

There are some financial instruments as well that can help you support the church-building effort. Of course, you can offer direct financial support to those giving their time to navigate the path toward making the church a reality and who have the intention of serving it as staff. But, there are also great financial instruments called Donor Advised Funds, available through Fidelity, Vanguard, National Christian Foundation, Schwab and others, that will allow you to tithe into a fund that disburses only into the charities of your choice, i.e. the startup church. If, for whatever reason, the venture doesn’t work out, you can still direct the money to go to another non-profit. In this way, you can still be faithfully giving before the church launches and go a long way towards providing the critical operational capital that will be needed for the effort to be successful.

Not because we think more is better or because our ministry style is “right” and others “wrong”. Our motivation is to help people see God clearly and have it made plain what He’s done for them and the life He’s offering them today. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, some debatable, some justifiable, many people have such a low or negative view of the Church. They don’t necessarily have a problem with God, but they definitely have a problem with the Church. We can debate the issues, but it is far too prevalent that in many cases Church has made it difficult for those seeking God or for those who want to deepen their walk with Him. When they attend, they experience a subculture unlike any other arena of their lives – a different vernacular, style of dress, unfamiliar traditions, etc. It all adds up to communicate of message of exclusion, i.e. “You’re different than us” or even worse, “We’re better than you.” And many go away with their suspicions confirmed and are frustrated again in their attempts to connect with God.

That motivates us to create churches where the model is simple and people can grasp that it’s all about God from the minute they walk in the door. We want to help them meet, understand and deepen their relationship with Him. We’re not trying to be everything to everybody and our competition is not other churches, but if there are opportunities in a community to use this model to reach people that might not otherwise consider a church, we’ll look hard at the possibilities.

We don’t target cities beforehand, but at this point we have a preference for supporting efforts in larger metro areas. We know we can’t be everywhere (nor should we be) and, in order to maintain quality control, we have decided to only do a handful of these a year, so that necessitates us shepherding our resources into efforts where we can potentially reach the most people.

We do not have a mandate to plant “x” number of churches per year. The only numerical goals our church routinely sets is the number of people in small groups. Our latest is to have 50,000 people in small groups by 2010 (currently we’re a little over 20,000). Of the 50,000, we hope the Partners will contribute 15,000.

Two reasons: 1. God places a premium on community; and 2. We feel that’s where life change most routinely takes place and is reinforced. From the start, God noted that it wasn’t good for man to be alone, and there’s no doubt that the early Church we see in Acts had a large communal element to it. In many cases the sum total of people’s relationship with God is comprised of 1 hour on Sundays where they hear some stories about Him and see all the other Christians. That’s a good recipe to find people full of the knowledge of God, but all alone and empty in their relationship with Him. The beauty of being in community by participating in a small group is that people share and have to work out what it means to prioritize God in their lives. There’s great power in that because ministry and application is coming from peers, not the staff of the church. People expect that from us (church staff). Ministry comes alive when your neighbors, co-workers, etc. are the ones sharing how God is real in their lives. That’s relevance!

We really want people to see the Church, not as four walls and a roof, but as people in the community. Small groups in homes around the city help reinforce this.

No. We are non-denominational. Our statement of beliefs and values can be found here – http://www.northpoint.org/faq.

No, we do not have a standing program to train pastors. When we decide to partner in a city, we will develop, in collaboration with the Lead Pastor, a training program or internship to best equip the pastor and the local staff team.