At the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, messengers approved a recommendation directing NAMB to dedicate at least half of its resources to church planting. NAMB is following that mandate, having made this shift, over the last several years.
Through this increased investment, NAMB now provides four years of funding and support for many church plants, instead of the previous average of three years. In addition, we invest much more in our improved, comprehensive church planter assessment process and in orientation, training, coaching and enhanced church planter care. This process is designed to raise the survivability rate of churches planted as well as generate a culture of churches that will multiply and plant multiple other churches.
The current church plant survival rate after four years is 86 percent, a reflection that the increased investment in each church plant is working—especially in much higher-cost urban areas across North America.