How We Steward your Generosity

Surge has One of the Most Successful Church Planting Models in the world

The effective and efficient Surge model has helped directly support the launch of 14,000 new churches since our founding in 2001.

We support church planters in two ways 1) Launch Funds and 2) Success Funds.

Launch Funds

Each church plant needs launch funds to start. This is support given directly to the field to help the pastor and church. These funds are used for:

• Pastor’s First-Year Salary
  Most of our pastors leave their jobs or leave their hometowns to start a new church. This is a big step of faith. The majority of the time, Launch Funds are used almost entirely to help support the pastor and their family in the first year of launching the church. Helping cover the basic necessities of life is very important. Often, Surge funds are assisted by funds the pastor receives from his local church that is sending him out. In some countries, we are unable to give salary funds directly to the pastor because of government restrictions hostile toward Christianity.
  

• Equipment
  Sometimes, a portion of the Launch Funds are used to help purchase necessary items for the pastor or church plant. This could include things like a microphone and speakers, a mode of transportation like a motorbike, rent for a facility, or a smartphone. This is decided with the approval of the Sending Leader after consulting with the pastor on what would make the most significant impact.

Success Funds

In our 20 years of church planting, we have learned that simply helping a pastor launch a new church is not enough. In fact, it is not good stewardship to give funds to launch new churches if there is no investment in ensuring the success of the church plant. These Success Funds are used for:

• Training
  This is a critical part of what best prepares a pastor to succeed in church planting. The goal of Surge Training is to train every Surge leader to become a confident and capable church planter, pastor, and multiplication leader.
  
  We have developed training for our church planters that has been tested and refined through the training of thousands of pastors and is used around the world in every different cultural context. We use a small portion of funds to cover the expenses related to having the pastor participate in Surge training and cover translation costs as we develop the training in new languages.
  

• Relational Discipleship
  Relational Discipleship is the Surge “secret sauce” that has enabled the movement to make such a significant impact through church planting. Relationship Discipleship is the process of spiritual fathering that develops leaders.
  
  As the term implies, there are two parts of this process. The first is for each of our church planters to be in relationship with a senior leader for connection, encouragement and spiritual oversight. The second is for the planter to be discipled through the church planting journey with ongoing mentorship and coaching.
  
  Because of this, every pastor has a Sending Leader that is responsible for them. A small portion of Success Funds are used to reimburse the Sending Leader for the many expenses they incur leading the planting pastor in this process.
  

• Outcome Reporting
  Tracking the health of our church plants is an ever-increasing priority of our movement. We collect update reports from each church and conduct research initiatives to ensure our efforts are most effectively reaching unreached and under-reached communities around the world. Because of our rapid growth, transparency of data and accurate information is important to protect the well-established integrity of Surge’s reputation and properly measure our impact. This requires only a small fraction of the Success Funds and is a worthwhile investment.
  

• Global Ministry Support
  Surge operates with a very lean leadership team and staff to minimize administrative costs. The Global Ministry Operating Budget covers support for Regional Directors in the field, all legal compliance, accounting, travel, staff salaries, technology and other back-office necessities so we can best support church planters.
  
  Some of the ways we intentionally keep costs low are by limiting marketing & advertising, choosing budget travel & accommodation options, forgoing expensive office space, outsourcing administrative work to part-time contractors and volunteers, and leveraging remote gatherings as much as possible—among many other cost-saving decisions.

We believe in our model.

One of the foundational pillars of Surge since the beginning has been to balance quality and quantity. Traditional missions models expend thousands of dollars in ongoing support for workers and church plants with disproportionally small impact after years of funding. We know that thousands of new churches are required to fulfill the Great Commission. Our goal is to resource church planters with exactly what is needed (no more and no less) to successfully plant a healthy Spirit-filled, self-replicating church that transforms the community for years to come.

Here are some numbers based on our last 3 years of operations

If you have any other financial questions, please reach out and one of our team members will quickly respond.