In this second post of this series, I am continuing to discuss why I believe that most church planting strategies to reach North America are inadequate for the great task of reaching the estimated 75% (U.S.) and 88% (Canada) of lostness today (As I have written before, I believe the actual percentages are higher. SEE HERE).
In this post, I begin my countdown of the three most significant shifts I believe are necessary for the Church to be poised for the multiplication of disciples, leaders, and churches. So, here we go.
Shift #3: We Must Shift from a Philosophy of Addition to a Philosophy of Multiplication
Now, I know there has been a good deal of discussion regarding multiplication over the past few years. For this I am very thankful. We in North America are at least talking about it. A few years ago, only missiologists and a handful of church planters were discussing it–and fewer others were listening. Church multiplication has been gaining some popular attention.
Unless the philosophy out of which we develop missionary strategy is permeated with the multiplication of disciples, leaders, and churches, then our church planting strategies are unlikely to lead to such multiplication.
I am hearing (and reading about) some of the discussions. But I do not believe most of the strategic action steps being advocated will move us very close to multiplication.
I wonder if most of us even realize what we are asking for when we talk about multiplication, which is generally synonymous with movement.
In the early 20th century, Roland Allen referred to this matter as the “terror of the missionaries,” simply because the inevitable result of such a work of the Spirit would result in such multiplication that the missionaries of his day would not be able to control the outcome and growth.
The “terror” is still with us. It reveals its ungodly head in our church planting (multiplication?) strategies whenever we do not seek to reach, teach, and release people back into the fields. Remember, the same Apostle Paul who taught the whole council of God (Acts 20:27) was the same Apostle Paul who requested prayer that the gospel would spread rapidly and be honored (2 Thes 3:1). (Just an interesting side note–Act 20:27 was spoken to the Ephesian elders, men who were pastoring after having been saved for only three years; 2 Thes 3:1–was written to a church that Paul had planted in possibly as little as three weeks but definitely not more than three months. Please note: I am not advocating a time-line, just stating New Testament realities on which we should meditate.). I believe the Scriptures are very clear that we can have rapid multiplication and healthy disciples, churches, and pastors.
What is Your Philosophy?
Church planters must begin with strategies that embrace a philosophy of multiplication. Instead of focusing on planting a single congregation, teams should labor–sometimes simultaneously–to plant several churches. From the beginning, the work of the missionaries must be related to church multiplication through disciple-making and the corollary, pastoral multiplication. This means our strategies must focus on church planters modeling reproduction at all levels in the church planting process.
The greater the complexity of our strategies and methods, the less likely we will experience multiplication. Such involves an inverse relationship. As the diagram below portrays, everything we do is reproducible to some degree, but the question is “How reproducible is what we model before the people, reproducible by the people?”
Several years ago, Charles Brock, in his book The Principles and Practice of Indigenous Church Planting, wrote:
“A church’s view of reproduction will be learned early. Every action of the church planter becomes part of a lesson learned by the church, even during its birth. The planter’s relationship to the church can be likened to a parent-child relationship. The child is learning from every action of the parent even though the parent isn’t consciously teaching and the child isn’t consciously learning (Sometimes through his actions the parent teaches the child things he never intended to.) If the church planter is fully aware of the need for “thinking reproducible” in everything done, he will more likely plant a church capable of reproduction” (55).
Borrowing from Brock, church planters must “think” multiplication in three critical areas.
The Use of Material Things.
The material items that church planters use to plant churches communicate to the new churches “these are necessary for church planting.” Therefore, if such resources cannot come from the people AND be manipulated by the people, the likelihood they will be able to be involved in church multiplication is diminished. The more foreign the material requirements, the more difficult it will be for the people to be involved in multiplication. If they must depend on a church planter and a great deal of his material resources to come into existence, then they will likely remain in this paternalistic relationship for any future church planting activities.
The Use of Strategy
The church planting strategies must be contextualized to the people. The complexity of our strategy will affect the ability of the congregation to learn from and reproduce healthy strategy. Again, the more complex the strategy, the more difficult it will be to multiply by the people.
The Use of Leadership
If we model a form of leadership before the people that only the few can imitate, then the possibility of multiplication will be diminished. For example, say I am a high-caliber leader, a ten-talented guy, a one-in-a-million leader, and I do not model a form of leadership before my people that those called-out can imitate, then am I truly a good leader who is concerned with multiplication? Yes, there is a time and place to lead like a ten-talented leader. But, if my regular leadership style and ways of doing ministry are so lofty that they impress upon the people: “You can never do ministry like this–the way ministry should be done. I’ll do everything for you. And only those of such a caliber as myself are the people to whom you should entrust with any significant ministry,” then I am not a leader with church multiplication in mind. If my leadership approach to church planting can only be imitated by the other high-caliber leaders, then how many people am I possibly excluding from being raised up as church planters? If I am a ten-talented leader and expecting all church planters to be ten-talented leaders, then I am excluding those who are nine-talented, eight-talented, seven-talented, etc.
Such is not the way to church multiplication.
If the church planter manifests a leadership style which can only be developed through years of education and ministerial experience, then few within the new church will desire or even be capable of being raised up as pastors or church planters.
The more technical our leadership model for church planting, the more difficult it will be for the people to multiply churches.
Next post: Shift #2: The Methodology Shift
I felt the need to comment on this. I absolutely agree with you in that Christ must continue to be shared and that, as He is shared, His Church will grow. However, I have some issues with how you claim your approach to church multiplication is shown in Scripture. Your basis for your argument is simply two verses from the whole New Testament. It seems like you are not considering the rest of the New Testament or Scripture within your thought to what it truly means for the Gospel to spread.
Also, I think it is interesting that Paul does not actually tell the elders in the church of Ephesus to multiply churches in their communities. He only entrusted them to watch over the brothers and sisters of the church at Ephesus, to help guide them through persecution and people persuading them to abandon Christ.
Finally, I almost feel that you have placed church multiplication as the most important thing instead of Christ himself. The reproduction of churches seems to be the end result instead of Christ. I’m sure you don’t mean to be implying that but that is what it looks like to me. The intent of all things should not be “How can we employ the best strategy to plant churches quickly and effectively?” but it should be “How can we ultimately place Christ at the head of all things so that His body will be transformed and grow, whether slowly or quickly?” In claiming there is an overarching model everyone can and should follow, the intent Christ may have for a community is pushed aside in favor of a philosophy and methodology.
Forgive me if I seem harsh. I do not intend to be. I have been reading and thinking a lot on this topic and I simply feel that there are some areas in your thinking that I feel need to be examined a little more.
Despite all criticisms I may have, I wish you grace and peace and I am encouraged by your desire to see Christ revealed to all people.
While this is an excellent discussion, I think it is handicapped by some of the terminology we use. We talk about church planting, and then have to emphasize that we are talking about evangelism and making disciples. We then talk about church multiplication, and then have to emphasize that we are talking about organizing new disciples into churches and developing leadership for these churches.
I am concerned that …
1. In the focus on getting churches going and keeping them going, the emphasis on disciple making will be lost and then – voila! We have the traditional reality of a church that is internally focused. Nothing new here.
2. To keep the focus on disciple making, why not change the term to “disciple multiplication movement”?
3. If you gathered a thousand people in a field and let them talk with each other, within days they would organize themselves into groups, leaders would emerge and the crowd would naturally develop a structure of influence and government appropriate for their culture. Won’t churches naturally develop anyway if we focus our energies instead on disciple making?
Thanks David. I do agree with much of what you write. Sometimes our terminology causes problems. Yes, we are told to make disciples and teach them to obey. Churches come from such missionary labors. However, I would add that groups do not usually form churches, especially if they are recent converts. They do not know what to do. Here is another area where the missionary team comes in–to lead the people to the Scriptures and ask, “Is the Spirit bringing us together to be the local expression of the Body of Christ?”
Thanks, again David for sharing.
Marc, I greatly appreciate your comments. Thank you for sharing.
Yes, you have misunderstood my writing. However, I understand, for you only have an 1100 word blog post on which to comment. Without tooting my own horn, if you are familar with my other writings, then you would know that I am in agreement with you on getting the gospel right and the focus on Christ, not multiplication. Also, there is more biblical support for the missional nature of the Church than a couple of verses. And we are not told to multiply (or plant) churches in the Scriptures.
Now, to be fair, the blog series is about why I feel that North American church multiplicaiton strategies are inadequate for the task. So, stay tuned. Since I’m only in post two, some of your concerns may be address in the future.
Take care,
J. D.