Multiplying – The Way to Grow
One of the congregational goals I will be working on is to Ask, Knock, and Seek as a congregation to find a qualified church planter to participate in the NAB August Church Planter Assessment.
Why seek a church planter? Every church and every believer are called to multiply. Jesus said in John 15 that he wants us to bear abundant fruit--a picture of multiplying. Multiplying is a gradual process with exponential potential. The chart at the top is a chart of our family’s growth over the years. As you can see, we are experiencing the fruit of multiplication. Pam and I married in 1989. We debated about when to start a family. When we decided, we struggled to have our first child. We lost two children before they were born to miscarriages. This was very sad and discouraging, but we did not give up. In fact, those losses made us desire more children. This year our last child became an adult, and now those children are marrying and having children.
Our church has been seeking a church planter for a couple of years. We have not yet found the person to plant a rural Iowa church, but we are not giving up because without a church planter we cannot plant a church. We are not looking for someone who will plant a church, but someone committed to planting a church-planting church. If we could plant a church in five years that is committed to planting a church in five years and then both our congregations plant church planting churches in the next five years, and we try to keep the pattern going, the chart of our church multiplying in 30 years could show 64 churches. If those churches averaged only 50 members, there would be over 3,200 members. This would be so encouraging and is certainly possible! Realistically, some church plants may not make it and some churches may be able to plant more than one church in five years. Success depends on cultivating a deep desire for more churches.
Please pray for Vince Lindaman and me as we seek to build a search team to help our congregation ask, knock, and seek for this planter. Pray for me as I attend the “EXPONENTIAL” conference in Orlando March 6-8 for my continuing education. I will be attending with Stu Streeter, our North American Baptist Conference Vice-President of Church Multiplication. Pray God will introduce me to people who can help us find our planter and teach me lessons that can help us become a multiplying church.
