The Curriculum · Phase III — Shepherd & Church · 28 hrs

Module 09
Planting the House Church.

This is ENDS’ designed training content, published so churches and partners can read and teach from it. Tags like [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED] mark where in-country partners supply the local specifics (regional religions, songs, examples), because the curriculum is delivered orally, in the pastor’s own language and culture. It is a living document under ongoing review.
Read the Full Lessons — Every Session Written Out

1. Purpose & Place in the Arc

By Phase III the pastor knows the Story, the gospel of the kingdom, and sound doctrine, and he can teach the Word orally (Modules 01–08). Now he must do the thing that carries all of it forward: gather a people. A pastor without a church is a shepherd without a flock. This module puts a first gathering into his hands — small, simple, and unmistakably a church.

It sits between Module 08 (Teaching the Word) and Module 10 (Shepherding God's Flock): Module 08 gave him the skill to open the Scriptures where no book is present; Module 10 will teach him to care for the sheep once gathered. This module is the hinge — where the teaching becomes a body — and it feeds Module 11 (Worship, Baptism and the Table) and Module 14 (Training Trainers), because a church planted with healthy DNA reproduces.

We teach from Luke 10 and the Acts households: Jesus sent laborers ahead of Him to find a person of peace and stay in his house, and the first churches met in homes, around a table, over the Word. The pattern we hand the pastor is not a building or a program, but a household to enter and a Lord already going ahead of him into the harvest. Every trainee plants or strengthens one real gathering during this phase. This module is passed in the village, not the classroom.

2. Learning Outcomes

By the end of the module, the pastor can:

  1. Explain from Luke 10 what a person of peace is and how he will recognize one in his own context.
  2. Pray the Luke 10:2 posture — that the harvest belongs to the Lord, who alone sends laborers.
  3. Lead a first gathering simple enough for a new believer to repeat within a week.
  4. Name the five marks of healthy DNA (Word, prayer, table, generosity, witness) and show where each appears in a home gathering at meeting one.
  5. State from Scripture what makes a gathering a true church — Word, ordinances, loving discipline, mutual love — not merely a meeting.
  6. Identify the three common plant-killers (dependency, foreign forms, the one-man show) and name one guard against each.
  7. Discern, from Luke 10 and Acts 14, whether to stay in, hand over, or move on from a gathering, and account for a real gathering's health to a mentor.

3. Session Plan

The 28 hours run as fourteen 2-hour sessions. Sessions 1–12 are taught; Sessions 13–14 are supervised field-lab and assessment. Field practice between sessions is where most learning lands.

Session 1 — The Lord of the Harvest

Session 2 — The Person of Peace

Session 3 — The Household of Peace

Session 4 — The First Gathering: Simple and Reproducible

Session 5 — Unmistakably Church

Session 6 — Healthy DNA I: The Word and Prayer

Session 7 — Healthy DNA II: The Table and Generosity

Session 8 — Healthy DNA III: Witness and Multiplication

Session 9 — Plant-Killer: Dependency

Session 10 — Plant-Killer: Foreign Forms

Session 11 — Plant-Killer: The One-Man Show

Session 12 — Stay, Hand Over, or Walk On

Session 13 — Field-Lab: Coaching Clinic

Session 14 — Competency Assessment

4. Story Set & Memory Work

Stories to be mastered orally (told, not read):

Memory verses:

ReferenceHandle / cue
Luke 10:2The harvest is His; pray Him to send laborers
Matthew 18:20Two or three in His name — He is there
Acts 2:42The four devotions: teaching, fellowship, bread, prayers
Acts 14:23Appoint elders; commit them to the Lord
Exodus 18:18You are not able to do it alone

5. Discussion Questions

Crafted for oral, communal discussion; several are honor-shame aware. Adapt wording with a partner.

  1. Why does Jesus command prayer for laborers before He commands us to go? What does that guard our hearts against?
  2. In our culture, how would we recognize a person of peace? What shows the peace has rested on him?
  3. When one member of a household believes, what happens to the honor of the family? How can a household come to Christ together without shame tearing it apart? [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
  4. Jesus says "remain in the same house." Why is the temptation to move house to house — and what does that reveal in a planter?
  5. Which of the five DNA strands — Word, prayer, table, generosity, witness — is easiest to leave out at the start, and what is lost later if we do?
  6. In our setting, does sharing a meal create obligation, debt, or status? How do we keep the table a place of grace, not patronage? [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
  7. What would make our neighbors call our gathering "a foreign thing"? Which of those things are the gospel, and which only borrowed forms? [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
  8. If an outside gift paid for our gathering and then stopped, would the gathering survive? What does your answer tell you?
  9. Why did Paul appoint elders — more than one — in every church rather than leaving one strong man in charge?
  10. Who in your gathering could lead it if you were taken away tomorrow? If no one, what does that require of you this month?
  11. Where is the person of peace God may have already placed near you — and what is your next step toward his house?

6. Between-Sessions Field Practice

Each assignment is done in the pastor's own village or context, not simulated.

[PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]: safety and gathering realities in restricted areas. Where meeting openly is dangerous, coordinate with the national-pastor guidance in Module 12; import no outside operational detail.

7. Competency Assessment

The competency: The pastor has planted or strengthened one real gathering and can lead it and account for its health.

To pass, the trainee must demonstrate to his mentor:

  1. A real gathering exists — it has met more than once during the module, with named people, in a home or equivalent local space. The mentor verifies by visiting, or by a firsthand report from someone present, plus the oral log.
  2. He can lead a reproducible first gathering — the mentor watches him lead or narrate one built only on a told passage, prayer, and shared food, with nothing requiring a book or money.
  3. He can name and locate the five DNA strands in his gathering, and name the weakest.
  4. He can name the four marks of a true church and say honestly which are present and which are still forming.
  5. He can identify the three plant-killers in his own gathering and state one concrete guard against each.
  6. He can say which road — stay, hand over, or walk on — his gathering needs now, defended from Luke 10 or Acts 14.

How the mentor verifies: direct observation or firsthand report of the gathering; an oral defense covering points 2–6; and confirmation that at least one other believer is being trained toward leadership.

What "not yet" looks like, and remediation:

Attendance never substitutes for demonstration. A trainee who attended every session but has no gathering has not passed.

8. Mentor Notes

Common errors to watch for:

Contextualization flags — for the partner and national trainer, not for outside authors. Each requires [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]:

9. Doctrinal Anchors

This module principally serves Article VII — The Church (gathered around the Word, the ordinances, loving discipline, and mutual love; believers' baptism) and Article VIII — The Commission (planting reproducing churches is how the commission reaches the unreached). It leans on Article I — The Scriptures (their sufficiency is why the Word, not print or foreign forms, governs the gathering) and Article VI — Salvation (households come by genuine repentance and faith, never by family pressure alone — so we guard against nominal household conversion).

Guardrails against the named counterfeits:

Every doctrinal element here is downstream of Modules 06–07 and consistent with the ENDS Statement of Faith — settled doctrine applied to the work of gathering a people, with no novelty introduced.

← Module 08 · Teaching the Word — Storying & RetentionModule 10 · Shepherding God's Flock →
© 2026 ENDS — Ends of the Earth Initiative. This curriculum is original ENDS content, oral-first and delivered in-country through our partners. It is a living document under ongoing theological review. ENDS is pursuing recognition as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization; until that status is granted, gifts should not be represented as tax-deductible.
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