You can read the first three posts HERE, HERE and HERE. If a church can reach and commit to the third stage of church planting, then I think the fourth one just naturally takes place. At least, that is what we thought as we were hashing this out at Lead Team. I think by the time a church is established…if they choose to enhance and expand…they WILL become, by the power of God…
Exponential: The fourth stage of the church is exponential. It’s at this stage of the church where church multiplication happens. New churches are birthed out of the existing church. Today we’re seeing multi-site campuses and web-campuses and ALL sorts of various arenas to multiply the church. Church planting USED to mean, one poor guy goes to a community all by himself with no money, no support, no team and no CLUE. Today, I think the church has CORRECTLY taken on a more aggressive and intentional church planting mode. The training, coaching and resourcing today is unbelievable.
The biggest statement is “Whatever takes it further”: Who is God raising up to lead the NEXT church plant? Where are new churches needed for God to send us. It’s at this stage where the training and coaching of leaders hits unprecedented levels. Multiplication needs to happen not just in the “church” but individually. We MUST be raising up new leaders. Maybe books are written by the pastors here, or conferences are held. I don’t think Rick Warren set out to write a book when he started pastoring. I just think that at some point, it needed to be exponential. I don’t think Bill Hybels’ goal was to do conferences, but at some point it was his responsibility to be exponential. Exponential will be different for every place. Some will do conferences, write books, or start organiaztions. Others will train leaders, coach planters or fund church plants. Whatever the case, we need to be mindful of being exponential. What innovative ways have we yet to uncover that will enable us to multiply?
The biggest question is “Where else can we go?”: It’s no longer “what can we do?” but “where can we go?” How can we multiply?
The biggest danger is “Let’s keep it all!”: If a church doesn’t eventually begin to “share the wealth” through multiplication it will eventually fall for “Let’s keep it all”. What you do is end up building an “empire”. And by “empire” I don’t mean mega churches. Big churches aren’t the only ones with a responsibility to multiply. There are 100 person churches that are nothing but a reflection of the empire they’ve created. There are also MEGA churches that are the same. Just saying, don’t point to big churches as having an empire or making it JUST their responsibility. Some of the GREATEST multipliers I’ve seen come from both ends of the spectrum. It has NOTHING to do with size of the church.
Words that fit the exponential church are: share, release, equip and empower. (didn’t do this for the other stages. Maybe I should. lol)
As I was thinking about all four stages I realized that the one theme that EVERY stage has is this: “We’re willing to fail!”. You’ve got to be willing to fail to try and get established. You MUST be willing to fail to move from establish to enhance. Failure is a REAL possibility in trying to expand, and when you try and go exponential, failure very well may happen.
Learning,
Jeff
