Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

P ART I: D EVELOPING U RBAN C ONGREGATIONS • 83

picture of the ministry goals and strategy. Not all World Impact staff are gifted or called as members of a church-planting team, but each missionary fills a valuable role in building God’s Kingdom in the inner city, whether involved in church planting or other types of community ministry. Mission Support World Impact’s National Office will provide resources to help church planters. This will include training church-planting teams, issuing written resource material and helping network the teams with each other and with outside resources. When Celebration services begin, the office will provide sample bylaws which the Celebration body can revise and adopt. These bylaws will help regulate the relation between the emerging church and World Impact in the period prior to constituting. These bylaws will spell out responsibilities and describe the financial phase-out schedule. World Impact will also be available to provide guidance for handling church finances and property acquisition. Once the church is ready to constitute, the National office will provide information about incor poration procedures. A sample constitution will also be provided for adaptation by the new church. Every effort will be made to insure a smooth transition to church independence. If World Impact operates service ministries in the city where the new church is planted, these services will serve as a resource to the new church. Schools will seek to include children from the new church as space allows. World Impact camps will provide retreat opportunities for the church body. Clinics will include church members in their provision of medical services. Whatever services World Impact can provide in the city, whether job-training, housing referral, thrift shops, etc., will be available to support the church body and its ministry. If staff and resources allow, the local World Impact city ministry may even originate ministry programs specifically designed to strengthen the network of churches that are planted. Theological Education by Extension (T.E.E.) and English as a Second Language (E.S.L.) are examples of such specialized programs which the mission is uniquely equipped to provide.

World Impact, as a mission agency, should remain available to help the new churches with their ongoing networking process. The networking