Planting a church is hard work. Reach Australia wants to inspire, equip and unleash as many new church planters as possible. This starts with our rigorous assessment process. We use a detailed process and behavioural interview developed by experienced church planters to assess whether you have the character, conviction and competency to plant a church.
Upon completion and subject to being recommended to plant, our church planters and church planting couples are supported through one to one coaching, a genuine peer network, training events and resourcing within the context of a network committed to seeing new churches evangelised into existence across Australia.
This form will allow you to apply for assessment as a church planter by Reach Australia. You should expect to receive a reply email containing an outline of the assessment process and the preliminary documents to be filled out.
This form can also be used to request further information about the assessment process and its applicability to your situation.
We’ve developed an online self-assessment (Church Planting Survey) to help you consider your strengths, growth areas, and how they fit with different church planting models. There are two components to this: the Gospel Workers survey here, and the Church Planting survey here. Both are free, and will be followed by a debrief with one of the Reach Australia team.
This is the first step in the assessment process and help you begin to identify if planting is for you.
You should get assessed between 12-24 months from your anticipated launch date. We encourage all our planters to spend the time preparing well before starting a new church. A long lead time gives you the option to work on areas of growth, build a launch team and begin praying for and evangelising your community.
If you are unsure whether you are a church planter, do not have a clear conviction, lack giftedness, are uncertain of what you are to do, and/or do not have a timeline in place, it would be better to not submit an application with Geneva at this time. We would encourage you to speak with your pastor about your hopes and dreams, come along to Reach Australia (our national church planting conference), and speak with current and experienced planters, or connect with Derek Hanna the Director of Planting.
The assessment process is not quick and easy. It takes between 15-20 hours to complete the required documentation. That’s because we care about potential planters and want to make sure they are well prepared for the hard yards ahead. There are several documents to fill in, as well as online self assessment tools, and our need to collect references from a wide range of people to consider. Applicants will also be required to submit a sermon for evaluation and prepare a detailed church-planting plan. Planting couples will be assessed by at least one experienced church planting couple and another experienced church planter.
It’s worth persevering if you intend on breaking new ground in Australia. After all, if you’re going to take on this type of ministry, you want your eyes tested not just counted. We believe this process can be invaluable for helping you do the work on the ground, whatever stage your plant is up to.
Support from generous people, organisations and churches throughout Australia mean we can provide the assessment process free of charge (the real cost is about $1,500 to $2,000).
We encourage all our planted churches to invest 1% of their budget towards seeing the next generation of planters inspired, equipped and unleashed across Australia. This is not mandated BUT we’re praying all our equipped church planting couples would generously support the work (this is detailed in second stage of assessment process).
There are significant benefits that flow from being assessed as a suitable church planter by Reach Australia:
Here are the steps we recommend you follow in order to begin the assessment process:
However, there are a limited number of people who can be assessed at any one conference and preference will be given to those who have notified the assessment team and submitted the appropriate documents. Apply for assessment. Use the email form above to get your name on the list.
Reach Australia’s vision is to see thousands of healthy, evangelistic, multiplying churches. When it comes to planting, we’re hoping to see 300 new churches evangelised into existence across Australia by 2030. The assessment process is vital to ensuring potential planters are well prepared for the hard yards ahead. As a network we want to see planters assessed, coached and nurtured to established church planting churches that are grounded and growing, making disciples and maturing believers who make disciples.
The assessment process has essentially two phases:
There are two parts of the online self-assessment which we ask you to complete. After this we’ll organise an online catch up to hear more about you, your plans, and to debrief the self-assessment. The two parts of the online assessment are both free. You can find the Gospel Workers Quiz here, and the Church Planting Questionnaire here.
Once you have completed the assessment documents we will arrange for an assessment interview to take place with you and your wife (if applicable). The assessment interview takes about 2.5 hours to complete and will be undertaken by experienced Australian church planters.
Assessment take place throughout the year, especially at our national conference in May. At the completion of the interview Reach Australia will provide you with an Assessment Report and recommendations.
What are the different assessment outcomes?
There are four assessment outcomes, as follows:
