Before the next public promise, the team should be able to answer seven questions with evidence. The color marks below are decisions, not a score: green supports moving forward; yellow names a contained gap with a temporary control and a date; red stops the move because the next phase would make a promise the church cannot keep or expose people to unmanaged danger. One red condition is enough to delay a launch even when the rest looks strong.
Gate 1: Confession and Received Life
Green when: confession, Scripture, gospel, baptism, Table, prayer, holiness, office, mercy, mission, Israel and the nations, and resurrection hope are stated and operational; disputed local judgments are honest; teaching and correction authority are clear.
Red when: the plant is organized around a leader, method, grievance, or market while the Church's irreducible life remains undefined; material doctrine is hidden to preserve recruitment; DDF is used as a novel identity rather than an architecture under Christ.
Gate 2: Planter, Household, and Team
Green when: call is externally affirmed; character and competence have been observed; the household has ongoing consent and outside care; the team has practiced correction; critical functions have owner, backup, and reviewer.
Red when: unresolved deception, coercion, abuse, sexual misconduct, money disorder, addiction, retaliation, doctrinal evasion, household collapse, or founder indispensability is being managed as launch stress.
Gate 3: Polity, Money, and Civil Reality
Green when: authority and appeal are mapped; entity and affiliation are accurate; budget and cash plan are viable; duties are segregated; conflicts are managed; insurance and property are reviewed; law and records have named owners.
Red when: a person signs or spends without accountable authority; accounts cannot be reconciled; the lease or debt depends on undisclosed guarantees; related parties govern their own benefit; public funds are received without an accountable body.
Gate 4: Protection and Care
Green when: child and adult systems cover selection, interactions, monitoring, environment, response, and training; local reporting and crisis paths are current; leader allegations bypass implicated authority; care and referral lanes are trained and exercised.
Red when: background checks are the whole system; the pastor is the only complaint route; no one knows current reporting duty; abuse would be sent to mediation; imminent self-harm would be left to prayer and later follow-up.
Gate 5: Worship, Sacrament, and Access
Green when: the gathering has a theological logic; Scripture governs; authorized people prepare baptism and Table; congregation participates; children, visitors, languages, disabilities, privacy, sound, and emergency routes have been tested.
Red when: the first public service is the first full rehearsal; sacramental practice is undefined; the room predictably excludes people the church claims to receive; emotional manufacture carries the response; one person's absence cancels the service.
Gate 6: Formation, Belonging, and Mission
Green when: catechesis, baptismal or membership path, group boundaries, household and youth formation, evangelism follow-up, mercy, and neighbor partnership connect public worship to the week.
Red when: serving substitutes for belonging; transfer growth is reported as conversion; no one owns follow-up; groups promise secrecy; mercy requires religious performance; the place is treated as a target rather than a neighbor.
Gate 7: Operation, Review, and Continuity
Green when: calendars, roles, meetings, records, promises, dashboard, incident command, communication, succession, and closure have owners and have been tested; external review can change the plan.
Red when: critical knowledge lives in one person's phone or head; leaders cannot name a failure threshold; overdue promises are invisible; institutional survival overrides safe closure or partnership.
How to Decide
The governing or sending authority should receive the evidence, hear affected roles, record conflicts, and make one of four decisions:
- Proceed to the named next phase.
- Proceed narrowly with explicit limits and yellow controls.
- Pause until named red conditions change and are re-reviewed.
- Stop or redirect toward partnership, revitalization, merger, care, or another vocation.
Prayer belongs before, during, and after the decision. "We have peace" is not a substitute for the evidence record.
Before you move on. A signed seven-gate decision with evidence links, red and yellow conditions, conflicts, owner, review date, and next authorized phase.
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