Several pastors have asked why C1 is a network of pastors and leaders rather than an association of churches.

There are several reasons which can be summarized as follows: an association of churches requires a more robust organizational structure and incorporation process than a network of leaders.  An association of churches has the following implications:

1. Connecting churches officially by an organization increases the risk of creating a nexus between churches and thus sharing liability across churches.
2. An association of churches has a different and more complicated federal reporting standard.
3. There is little support for an authoritarian, hierarchical structure which overlaps existing local church and regional layers.  This lack of support is evident regardless of any attempt to codify safeguards in founding documents.
4. In addition, outside counsel advised us that a church association would inevitably lead to unwanted authority structures.

The good news is that there is nothing that a collaborative network of leaders cannot do that an association of churches can do.  In truth, churches don’t actually collaborate with one another, leaders do.  C1 intends to help facilitate collaboration by helping leaders connect around discipleship, missions, conferences, and anything else our members want their respective organizations to do together.  Practical areas of collaboration include sharing of resources, executing conferences on joint interests.

One area of clarification that is helpful is the area of pastoral care.  C1 will not have staff positions that do pastoral care, but C1 already has resources that will make it easier to connect people across the network who can care for one another.  These direct connections will be promoted through the C1 Teaming initiative, and ‘heart healing’ will be a powerful tool for facilitating pastoral wellness and care.

C1 is a peer network. No one is leading the members, everyone is contributing, collaborating, networking together to reach the parts of the world our members are called to reach. The board and staff of C1 are only there to make sure that there is a mechanism for connectivity, collaborating and resource sharing.

This is to model faith in God’s provision, and trusts that you know when best to utilize the network’s resources in your ministry.  

Our board, though they have limited authority.

The focus of C1 is pastors and leaders of ministries; it will benefit your church indirectly as you take advantage of the brotherhood, resources you can use, and it is a place you can put your gifts into action to help bless others in the network.

We believe additional leaders are required to reach the world with the gospel. Also, while C1 may offer services that benefit people in your church, the responsibility and authority to equip and shepherd church members lies with the local pastoral leadership, not with C1.

Yes. We know at times, the emotional health of leaders can be negelcted for the sake of immidate needs of the church or ministry, so we've made it a part of our network to address that need.

We recognize that to reach our world, we need everyone doing what they do best.  We want to embrace the leadership giftings and callings all working together until we all reach unity in the faith.

Yes, we are here to serve each other, and in fact, the statistical data indicates that those people operating by themselves probably need access to our brotherhood even more than our historical brethren.