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title: "4. Who Sent You?"
book_title: "DDF Church Blueprint"
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---
# 4. Who Sent You?
Desire to plant can be holy. It can also be mixed with restlessness, injury, ambition, conflict avoidance, financial hope, or the wish to build a church that cannot say no to its founder. Calling should therefore be discerned in the Church, tested through character and work, and held open to correction.
The New Testament's apostolos language centers being sent. Paul and Barnabas are set apart in a worshiping, fasting, praying church and sent with accountable relationships. Timothy's ministry is publicly recognized and entrusted. Titus receives a bounded task. The Pastoral Epistles insist that desire for oversight is tested by observable character, household life, teaching capacity, reputation, money, sobriety, and time. Gift is not yet qualification. Urgency is not yet sending.
Current church-planting networks often use assessment, training, coaching, and care. Those processes do not prove divine call, and their competency lists reflect particular traditions. They still make a sound field observation: readiness is better judged through evaluated life and work than through the candidate's self-description alone. A sending church should watch the person teach, form a team, receive correction, manage conflict, handle money, honor family and limits, care for weak people, and persevere in uncelebrated work.
## The Discernment Circle
No planter should be self-sent. Name:
- a sending church or recognized ecclesial authority able to affirm, delay, correct, and withdraw support;
- a plural assessment group not financially or emotionally dependent on the plant proceeding;
- a coach or seasoned pastor who is not the planter's supervisor or fundraiser;
- a care path for the planter, spouse or household, and core team;
- a doctrine and character review; and
- a written account of what conditions would mean "not yet" or "no."
If a candidate is married, the spouse is not an unpaid co-planter by default. Ask what the spouse actually consents to carry, what is private household life, what ministry role is freely accepted, and what support exists outside the planter's authority. Children are not launch assets, sermon material, or proof that the family is thriving. A family member's reluctance should not be spiritualized away.
## Test the Call in Ordinary Work
Give the candidate assignments with real responsibility and real review: teach a text and receive critique; lead a team whose members may disagree; design a small ministry with a budget and close it responsibly; visit sick and overlooked people; make a mistake publicly; manage confidential information; respond to a safety scenario; share leadership; rest without controlling what happens; and complete work that brings no public recognition.
Review for fruit, not personality fit alone:
- Domain | Evidence to observe | Reason to pause
- Confession and teaching | handles Scripture in context; states doctrine clearly; receives correction | novelty as identity; evasive doctrine; using "vision" to overrule Scripture
- Character | humility, truthfulness, sexual integrity, sobriety, patience, money discipline | hidden pattern, retaliation, contempt, repeated deception, unaddressed addiction
- Relationships | durable friendship, apology, non-defensive feedback, shared leadership | isolation, discarded critics, intensity mistaken for intimacy, loyalty tests
- Household and limits | freely negotiated expectations, rest, protected family life, outside care | spouse or children carrying the launch under pressure; no Sabbath or privacy
- Pastoral presence | attends to weak and inconvenient people; knows referral limits | people used as stories; rescuer identity; amateur diagnosis; contempt for ordinary care
- Leadership | makes clear decisions; delegates; records; revises; finishes | controls information; cannot name failure; starts constantly; leaves cleanup to others
- Mission | speaks of Christ; listens locally; serves without performance | target-market contempt; technique replaces love; numerical urgency overrides formation
- Protection | follows boundaries; welcomes independent review; acts on danger | secrecy, boundary exceptions for gifted people, confusion of forgiveness and access
Some pauses should lead to growth and later reassessment. Others should end the planting path. A church does not owe someone a platform because time and money have already been invested. Sunk cost is not calling.
## The Sending Covenant
Put the relationship in writing. Name doctrine and polity; supervision; funding; financial custody; worker status; intellectual property and data; insurance; safeguarding responsibility; who employs whom; who can remove a leader or pause public ministry; complaint and appeal routes; what happens if the planter resigns, becomes ill, dies, is disqualified, or departs from the confession; and when the plant becomes self-governing.
The covenant should also name care. Who asks about the planter's soul when the metrics look good? Who can insist on rest? Where can a spouse or team member raise a concern without it returning first to the planter? Who remains after a failed launch? Sending is not sponsorship at the beginning and distance during trouble.
Before you move on. A written discernment finding, development plan, sending covenant, care map, and explicit pause or stop conditions.
Field phase: Read the Place and Form the People