ConvergeUSA Blog

Ignite A Church 2010-15: Church Multiplication Campaign

“The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city.” Tim Keller 

God’s people have faced numerous hardships in our history.  The pain of relentless persecution! The paralyzing nature of famine and nature disasters!  The numbing effect of an economic crisis! All of these hardships have one thing in common they have never thwarted the mission of God.  God’s people made the necessary adjustments and turned these crisis moments into expansion opportunities.  Rodney Stark in the Rise of Christianity wrote, “Cyprian, Dionysius and Eusebius and other church fathers thought the epidemics made major contribution to the Christian cause”. Many believe that we are encountering an unparalleled opportunity for the penetration of the gospel deep within our society. Courageous leaders seize opportunities.   This call to multiplication is really a call for courageous faith. A faith that acts on Jesus words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

I am proud to serve with courageous leaders in our fellowship of churches with such a high level of commitment to multiplication. During our last major multiplication campaign of 2000-2005 we together mobilized over 230 church planters across the United States. In light of this success, Converge has been recognized as one of very few fellowships of churches that has seen positive growth rate. In a cultural setting where the church is in severe decline nationwide, we are certainly experiencing the favor of God.  In a 2007 Annual Report we discovered the following:

• Average Weekly Attendance in 2007: 154 impacting 22,847 individuals

• Average Big Sunday Attendance in 2007: 248 impacting 36,508 individuals

• Total Number of Baptisms in 2007: 1916

• The Average Weekly Offering in 2007: $4286.00

• Total Annual Contributions Received in 2007: $32,538,844.00

A Call to Multiplication

• By faith our church desires to ignite a new church between January 2010-January 2015

• Start a daughter church

• Share your facility with a new church

• Enter the Restart Program

• By faith our church desires to ignite a new campus congregation between January 2010-January 2015

• Start a new off-site congregation

• By faith our church desires to ignite a church planting network of churches by igniting three or more new churches or campuses between January 2010-January 2015

• Start three churches or campuses that will form a new network

• Start a church planting network that will ignite 3 or more churches

• By faith our church desires to ignite a church multiplication center by igniting five or more churches or campuses between January 2010-January 2015

• Becoming a regional church

• Establish multiple preaching points throughout your region

• Hire or allocate staff who are dedication to church multiplication

In an aid to asist the multiplication dreams and to see them become a reality we are developing the following learning communities and coaching clusters.

• How to Become a Parent Church

• How to Launch a Multi-site Strategy

• How to Start a Church Planting Network

• How to Becoming a Church Multiplication Center

Do you have a multiplication dream?

 

Share it with your regional leaders and stay tune for more information on the multiplication learning communites that are launching in 2010.

Is this Missional?

HT

Self Leadership - Mark Bjorlo

Mark Bjorlo, pastor of The Journey North Community Church in Brainerd, MN has some great thoughts on leadership.

1. The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. Theodore Roosevelt

2. The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. Theodore M. Hesburgh

3. Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too. Robert Half

4. Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. George S. Patton

5. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. Peter F. Drucker

I have been thinking and reading a lot about leadership lately. What makes a great leader? Why do people follow one person and not another? Is leadership innate or learned? Bill Hybels has said that if you have the spiritual gift of leadership it is your responsibility to develop that gift for the sake of the church to the zenith of the gifts potential.

Most of us who lead have to lead followers and that is easy to understand. But we also need to be mindful of leading peers (those who walk along side of us). It would be easy to stop there but if you have someone over you, you should be mindful of learning how to effectively lead up. For most people the hardest person they will ever lead though is their own self.

Self Leadership seems to be a missing link far too often. It is the issue of integrity that we see missing in more than a few leaders today. So, my personal quest in this season of learning is to first and foremost focus on mastering the art of my own self leadership. Self Leadership can be defined as “the process” of influencing oneself to establish the self-direction and self-motivation needed to perform in a God honoring way.

Acts 24:16 (New International Version) “So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.”  HT