1999
John Stuart Adler
A Letter to Chris: The First Seven Years of a New Plant Congregation
This dissertation examines several situations typically encountered when planting a new congregation. It incorporates principles of church growth and interweaves these principles with concepts of congregational size and parallel development. All of the concepts presented are related to seven years of actual attendance statistics with an emphasis on using these statistics to predict rather than react to situations encountered. The final chapter presents a list and brief description of the “Top Ten Priorities” for use in planting new congregations.