Over the past few months, the cry of our heart to God has been for Him to shut doors in our path if this was not His will for us. Among the many doors that have opened for the past several months was the formal assessment that each church planter with Stadia must go through.
Our thirteenth wedding anniversary found Sheila and I sitting in a hotel conference room across the desk from a clinical counselor. For the 6 or so weeks prior to our four day intensive, on-site evaluation, Sheila and I wrote a combined nearly 40 pages of documentation (questions regarding theology, practical experience, relationships, condition of our marriage, parenting opinions, and tons more) as well as filled out 3 different temperament/personality test (Taylor Johnson Temperament Analysis, DiSC profile and a Spiritual gifts assessment) not to mention development of a 3 generation family tree, resumes, references family pictures and other stuff.
Because of how the process works for other candidates, I am not able to talk publicly about the totality of the assessment process, but suffice it to say that it was grueling (in a very positive way)! Imagine this... you take 4 days of vacation to go through an assessment that you know NOTHING about... you walk into a room where you no absolutely NO ONE... sit down at a row of tables. Just before the main facilitator walks in, a row of "assessors" walk in, laptops in hand and sit behind you and begin to assess everything that you do... how you interact with others, how you lead in a group, how you follow. The scariest part... they separated spouses for almost all of the projects... SHEILA WAS TERRIFIED!
Now, I said all of that to say that there is a significant amount of investigation that goes into choosing a church planter/plant site partnership. This is not a decision that is entered into lightly!
Toward the end of the assessment process (after which I had a grand total of about 6 hours sleep - I think they want to see what you are willing to do to complete a project!) they meet with each potential planting couple to give them the results of their assessment.
You can imagine the tension that hung in the balance - and the relief when they told us that we had the "green light" on planting! We realized what a large process this was when we received a 60+ page report on our performance at assessment! WHEW!
If you are thinking about it, pray for other potential planters who are going through assesment NEXT WEEK (September 14-17) - they are terrified and their dreams of planting hang in the balance!
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