Multiplying Churches: Exploring God’s Mission Strategy

by Steve Timmis

Good news brings people together.

This is what the church has often done throughout history. We tell ourselves this makes sense because we can grow the church bigger more quickly. But Paul didn’t start two churches. Paul says: ‘Now that you are both in Christ, you are one community.’

Paul’s day the only place you could see Jew and Gentile coming together in unity was in the church and it blew people’s minds. It was a powerful demonstration

then your local church will reflect that. But there is always diversity in every neighbourhood. There are rich people, poor people, people who vote differently, people who grew up differently. So diversity within the church is always possible.

A diverse leadership team is crucial to begin the journey of building a multi-ethnic church.

But their responses would also have been filtered through the gospel. And often our personal and cultural preferences, when they’re filtered by the gospel, return as a ‘No’!

This was a tough battle for us during the early stages of our church plant, not because the music team didn’t want to play different genres of music, but because they didn’t know how.

feel of your music. (Don’t be afraid to bring in an unbeliever to help with the musical side of your worship – it could end up being a missional opportunity.)

In our church we simply call this telling our stories.

We are striving to be a multi-ethnic church that, by the power of the gospel, will plant more multi-ethnic churches. We want to see this become a movement for the sake of the kingdom to the glory of God.

Unbelievers are not hoping for a few tweaks to Christian practice that will pave the way for them to re-join the church in large numbers.

It is not marriage in general that illustrates Christ’s union with the church. It is marriage with male headship, sacrificial, reciprocating love and female submission. To redefine the gender relationships within marriage is fatally to blur the picture that marriage presents.

We see this beautifully illustrated in the description of ‘the excellent wife’ in Proverbs 31. This woman embodies what it means to be an image-bearer. She enjoys creation. She works with her hands. She engages in business. She cares for her family. She is right there alongside her husband at every level of cultural engagement.

has never been about you. Your marriage is not about your husband making much of you. Nor is it about you making much of your husband. It is about Jesus. You need to be passionate about making much of Jesus and you need to be passionate about your husband doing the same. This is what marriage is

for.

Wherever there is a place to teach and admonish with wisdom, there is a place for you as a woman to minister the gospel. Men, wherever there is a place to teach and admonish with wisdom, there is a place for women in your churches to minister the gospel and a place for you to encourage and equip them to do that.

When the Serpent comes to Eve in the Garden of Eden, Adam just stands by. The snake is telling lies about God. Adam should have said, ‘Stop telling lies about God.’ He should have stamped on the snake. But that is not what Eve should have done. It was not her role to stamp on the Serpent and defy his lies. Eve should have said, ‘Adam?’

Adam starts his job well enough because, while Eve was not there when God gave the first command in the garden, Eve knew what the command was. So Adam had already taught his wife. So, when the Serpent comes, Eve should

have said: ‘Adam, you told me God says we are not to eat from the tree. You said this was the way to live with blessing. You said our job was to rule and protect the garden. But there are lies in the garden now. Someone is lying to me about God.’ Eve, if necessary, should have done that for the rest of her life. A...

churches conducted by Challenge 2000 just prior to the new millennium, it was found that the sixty-four churches planted in the previous decade had grown by an average of 75 per cent per year. By contrast, even the strong evangelical and charismatic churches established prior to that date were increasing at just 6 per cent each year. New church plants were growing twelve times as fast as established churches. In addition, 68 per cent of the growth in the new congregations was from conversions and renewals with only 25 per cent from transfers.

Jerusalem (with a summary statement in 6:7) 6:8–9:31 Judea, Samaria & Galilee (with a summary statement in 9:31) 9:32–12:24 the coastlands to Syria (with a summary statement in 12:24) 12:25–16:5 Cyprus and Galatia (with a summary statement in 16:5) 16:6–19:20 Macedonia, Achaia and Asia (with a summary statement in 19:20) 19:21–28:31 Rome (with a summary statement in 28:31)

Let’s take a swift tour, following this journey with Luke as he takes us from Jerusalem to Rome. What we will discover is that church planting is far from an incidental feature in the unfolding drama. Wherever the gospel bears fruit, a church is planted. On the Day of Pentecost 3,000

creation and his point of conflict is idolatry. Whenever we’re communicating the gospel there needs to be both of these aspects in play: contact and conflict. We need to connect with the cultural or sub-cultural narratives. But at some point we also need to demonstrate how the gospel story conflicts with that narrative. This is the sharp end of the gospel. This is where the call to repentance is focused.

You have to love the people among whom you are planting. You have to have a sense that these are your people.

that is absent then pray for it. If you still fail to experience it, it probably means you’re not out there in the community, shoulder-to-shoulder, eyeball-to-eyeball. You’re not in the lives of the people, sharing their stories and carrying their burdens.

So it is better to reach the people you can reach. Reach those with whom you establish some kind of connection whether that be through a shared culture, dispositions or interests. It may be that, initially, we need to be content to see something homogenous develop. We can and should then call maturing believers to embrace diversity in Christ and train them to become all things to all men for the sake of the gospel. But in the initial stages be happy to be opportunistic for the sake of the gospel. Work hard by all means, but also work smart.

It can be an error for a church planter to get drawn into providing on-going pastoral oversight in a church when he has the gifting and temperament to plant multiple

our five doctrinal distinctives of Acts 29: We embrace a missionary understanding of the local church and its role as the primary means by which God chooses to establish his kingdom on earth. The church has a clear biblical mandate to look beyond its own community to the neighbourhood, the nation, and the world as a whole; thus mission is not an optional program in the church but an essential element in the identity of the church. We are called to make Christ known through the gospel and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to bring his lordship to bear on every dimension of life. The primary way we fulfil this mission is through the planting of churches that plant churches and the training of their leaders. Our aim is that Jesus Christ would be more fully formed in each person through the ministry of those churches God enables us to plant around the world. We also believe we are responsible neither to retreat from our culture nor to conform to it, but with humility, through the Spirit and the truth of the gospel, to engage it boldly as we seek its transformation and submission to the lordship of Christ.