Daughter Churches: Insights, Ideas and Secrets of Success
John Hanson, Thompson, CT-
My advice is that you first prepare a written plan of action that clearly defines roles, stages, and transition triggers. Then begin as a small group/preaching point. NAM has been helpful in that it has promoted the “Bible Study; Preaching Point; Daughter Work” model, as well as training to that end.
The main barrier is an inflow of souls since we do not consider it a daughter work until someone is winning souls.
Require that new people are being reached and require that more than one small group is established before declaring it to be a daughter work. It is important to have regular communication and accountability between the pastor of the mother church and the daughter work and to have in place a policy not to accept transfers during daughter work status.
We have started one daughter work which is now a strong, autonomous church. We plan on starting more daughter works, but we will be focusing more on multiple congregations.
