Emerging Faith Community Planter Assessment

Assessment is an essential step in the discovery phase of planting a new place for new people or an emerging faith community. Leaders of emerging faith communities come from all sorts of backgrounds and are at all stages of life. This process is intended to identify the strengths present in individuals to lead new ministry projects. The aim is to identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement in each participant.

If you are interested in exploring your potential for planting on your own, check out this page:

Assessment Tools for Discerning a Call to Plant.

If you complete any inventories, keep the results. Our conference uses these same inventories in our assessment process.

Assessment in Preparation for Planting

Planter Assessment is a required step in the process of financially supporting an emerging faith community. We partner with Path1 and UM Discipleship Ministries for our assessment process. Because successful planting is multi-faceted, we ask each participant to complete a questionnaire and several online inventories followed by an interview. There are five basic steps:  

Step 1. Download the Planter Assessment Application. Complete it and the inventories linked in the application.

Step 2. Create a 3 to 5-minute video of you communicating on a social media platform (a Facebook, Vimeo, or YouTube link, a Dropbox file, or any other format that you prefer). It could be a prayer, a portion of a sermon, an announcement, or any other video clip that you believe demonstrates your communication style. Have a link ready to include in the application.

Step 3. Submit your applications and accompanying documents. An interview team will review the materials and prepare for an interview with you.

Step 4. Meet with the interview team to discuss the inventory results and questionnaire.

Step 5. Following the interview, the team provides a written report with a summary and recommendations to you and the Congregational Vitality Committee.