The Church Training Network exist to train and equip the 95% of churches in America under 500.
Eric Smith is founder and president of the Church Training Network. The Church Training Network was founded to give world-class training to smaller and midsize churches. Typically hired consultants and trainers are only available to larger churches because they are the only ones who can afford them. The Church Training Network is changing the game and creating a pathway where all churches can assess world-class face-to-face realtional training.
The way we do this is by outside funding from generous individuals and churches who scholarship the majority of the cost to offer this training. This allows smaller and mid-size churches to pay a fraction of the cost of the typical cost and get real face-to-face training and consulting.
The Church Training Network is partnered with Equip Coaching, which offers a step-by-step system for growing healthy churches called Momentum. This system is used to help churches go to their next level and typically cost $30,000-$40,000 annually, but because of scholarships through our generous donors we are able to offer it to church and they pay a fraction of the cost.
Eric brings seventeen years of ministry and leadership experience, with ten of those years as a Senior Pastor. His Senior Leadership includes being the co-founder of Vertical Church, a church plant in Mississippi that became one of the fastest growing churches in Mississippi and grew to four campuses. During that same time period, Eric co-founded the 242 Network.
The 242 Network is a church-planting network that assesses, trains, and coaches church planters primarily in Mississippi, but also around North America. During his time as the 242 Network Director, the team developed church planter assessments, training, and coaching. The staff team of 242 Network grew to eight employees with an incredible track record of effectiveness.
After almost seven years of leadership as a church planter and the 242 Network Director, Eric took on the task of revitalizing Vaughn Forest Church in Montgomery, AL, a church that had been declining for almost eight consecutive years. Under Eric’s leadership, the church saw the momentum change and within a year and a half, Vaughn Forest was named to Outreach Magazine’s “100 Fastest Growing Churches in America” being ranked the 55th fastest growing church in America.
During these past ten years of leadership, Eric began praying for the Lord to give him clarity and a vision for how to help churches become more effective in how they operate, reach the lost, make disciples, and build healthy church culture. Through the years of experience doing ministry and completing his Masters and his Doctorate degrees, Eric founded the Church Training Network and Equip Coaching.
The Equip Coaching systems can help good churches become great by bringing clarity to their vision and strategic plans, building relational trust on their staff and within their church leadership, and by growing a healthy culture that produces a discipling culture.
