Do you know the seldom discussed secret about how to minimize confusion and turf wars in a new church? At the end of the "Look and Listen" section in this part of the tour you will learn what you need to know to keep you out of a potentially deep valley in your second or third year.

In ToolBox Thinking all the major areas of ministry that are permanent requisites to a healthy church are organized in a hierarchical fashion.

For example, in Church Creation we suggest 5 major areas we call Goals. Each of these is subdivided into Strategies which in turn are divided into Segments. This hierarchy is adaptable by the user.

A new church needs to have at least one programming element or practical action plan for each of these areas. Further on in the tour you will see how several Projects are suggested from which to select to fulfill each philosophical area.

Each Goal and Strategy has a text description not shown here. While the structure is set by the system, all the text is modifiable. Most action oriented church starters are not as interested in this part of the program because it is not actionable directly. However, when they think about it, this philosophy structure provides a solid way to keep track of things on a macro basis. There are many ways to fulfill each part, but fulfilling each part is very important. Programs will come and go over time but the philosophical assumptions will tend to remain in place.

In the case of church starting, since the church only starts once it is critical to move forward from the initial concerns toward the long term concerns of the church.

The ToolBox handles this extremely well. It was originally developed for the broad church marketplace. Contained in the CC ToolBox is all the material that churches as big as many thousands with scores of full time staff are finding extremely helpful to get their ministry organized.

The Church Creation ToolBox covers all the same philosophy structure as the regular Ministry ToolBox. That is, there is a separate module for each of Worship, Discipleship, Fellowship, Evangelism, Ministry, Administration and Culture. A carefully planned church start quickly migrates existing and new resources into further development in each of these areas.

As we move on in the tour you will get a glimpse of the surveying mechanism in the CC ToolBox. Surveys of groups of people help to tune the ministry to the perceptions of others. For example, they help the leadership of a new church to define the perceived needs in the community and also in prospective or participating launch team members.

Click "Next" to continue the tour.