Train & Send – Our Church Planting Strategy

To further our efforts to plant more churches in the YMCA, we believe the next steps to take are training and sending Pastors to plant and lead churches in the YMCA. Therefore, we’ve established our residency program called, “Train and Send”.  “Train and Send” is the CITY Movement’s deliberate strategy to train resident Pastors for two years and plant churches with them. With our residents and partnering churches, we hold to a few values: 

We believe in Churches planting Churches

We believe the healthiest and most biblical way to plant churches is to have a church plant a church.  This means that whole congregations shows ownership of prayer, outreach and discipleship. The Great Commission has advanced so much that rare are the times that we need to plant a church with just one person/family.  Our desire is to plant churches with several elders in place and a willing and trained congregation.  

We believe in Decentralized Training

With our conviction of churches planting churches, we believe that the training that happens at the local church level will be far greater and more effective than anything at a state or national level.  Each congregation must commit to encouraging and equipping future pastors as well as each lead pastor must be committed to the vision and strategy of discipling future leaders. We want training to happen at a local level. 

We believe in Relational Training 

Since the work of pastoring is relational, the work of training new pastors must be relational.  Much time and effort must be invested into the training of the next generation of pastors.  Since our work is unique to train pastors to learn the soil of the YMCA, This is relational and time consuming, but “the important point here is that training is inescapably relational.” –The Trellis and the Vine

We believe that Collaboration is essential 

As we look to “train and send” pastors to plant churches in the YMCA, collaboration with other churches in order to evaluate the soil of various Y’s across the country is essential. One year into the training, discussions of readiness and location will drive us to our knees before the Lord and fill our calendars.