How to start a church planting movement:
Nine strategies that produce nine behaviors in believers that are necessary for church multiplication
Church planting movements happen because of the actions of believers. If believers do the correct actions, then multiplication will happen. But that fact is that many believers invest many hours working for Christ and the church, but their activity does not produce Kingdom multiplication.
Below is a chart that helps us understand what behaviors we need to produce in the lives of believers for the church to multiply. Strategies are simply plans to train, empower, and encourage behaviors in believers so that their lives produce the most fruit possible for the Kingdom in the years God has given them on earth.
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Strategies |
Needed Behavior |
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Strategy No. 1 – Abundant Prayer – Because strategies are not enough |
Needed Behavior: Believers who will develop a significant prayer life, especially praying about their role in church multiplication |
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Strategy No. 2 – Reproducible Entry Strategies – (Empty Field Strategies) |
Needed Behavior: Believers who will go to a new community and seek to start a new group by employing an entrance strategy |
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Strategy No. 3 – Abundant Sowing – (Seeded Field strategies) |
Needed Behavior: Believers who are trained to share the Gospel with non-believers and do so regularly |
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Strategy No. 4 – Reproducible Short Term Discipleship – (Growing Field strategies) |
Needed Behavior: Believers who are equipped to form a group and lead the group through a short term discipleship process |
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Strategy No. 5 – Reproducible Long term Discipleship – (Growing Field strategies) |
Needed Behavior: Believers who are equipped to train others in long term discipleship |
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Strategy No. 6 – Intentional Church Formation Strategies – (Harvest Field strategies) |
Needed Behavior: Believers who are trained to lead others in helping a group become a church. |
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Strategy No. 7 – Reproducible Leadership Multiplication – Ensuring there is an on-going supply of “workers,” “starters” and “multipliers” in the system |
Needed Behavior: People who become leaders in the multiplication strategies in local church, leading empty field, seeded field, growing field and harvest field strategies |
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Strategy No. 8 – Healthy Church Strategies – Ensuring that the churches that are planted begin as healthy churches and that the health is maintained over time |
Needed Behavior: People who are trained to train others to create a healthy church with clear purposes, multiplication systems, and evaluation systems |
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Strategy No. 9 – Church Reproduction Strategies – Ensuring that there are strategy coordinators who can train others in the nine strategies |
Needed Behavior: People who can train others to train others in the nine strategies, and provide oversight and encouragement for the people they train |
Strategy Coordinators
The next piece of the puzzle for creating a church planting movement in our region is to identify those people whom God has called and gifted to be strategy coordinators. Strategy Coordinators will train pastors and other leaders in the nine strategies that are necessary for a church planting movement and then would provide oversight and encouragement to the ones that they train.
We are moving to create Strategy Coordinator Training. This will start with a three day beginning training event. We are still determining the place and date, but it will be sometime later in the summer. While registration will be limited, and it will be a first time experimental training group, you should consider participating in the training if you have a sense of being called by God to help start a church planting movement, and a passion to reach many more lost people for Jesus than our present systems are currently reaching.
Please contact David Harvey if you are interested in being part of this training.
Reframe Conference
In just a few weeks we will gather again for Reframe Conference. This is a conference that is dedicated to reaching as many people as we possibly can by starting a Church Planting Movement in the United States. We will be honored to hear from Bruce Bennett again. In the last twelve months Bruce’s churches have reached 1.3 million new people for Christ. We cannot really comprehend those numbers. It will be a joy and an honor to listen again to someone whose ministry has been so blessed by God. If you haven’t registered you can register at www.reframeconference.com.
A Unique Opportunity
For those Attending Reframe Conference there will be a unique opportunity for a small group of individuals, about 6-8 people, to meet alone with Bruce Bennett and have him personally coach you in creating your plan for church multiplication. This small cohort will meet in the mornings before breakfast and during some meal times. If you wish to be part of this group please contact David Harvey at Dharveymar@aol.com.
Gathering Information
I am attempting to gather information from anyone who has made any attempts at implementing some of the Bruce Bennett system during the past year. If you have, taught a church planter’s class, went looking for a person of peace, sent people into to a new community, tried to start a new group, or started a new group, I would like to hear from you. Please send me a short summary of what you have done in the past year, even if you have a sense that it didn’t succeed. It is very important that we keep accurate records of what is being done in this venture, and we need your accurate reporting to do that. Many of you have already reported in what you have done, but if you haven’t please send a brief summary of your efforts to me at Dharveymar@aol.com.
Be with Him
Willie Kirchhofer has created a blog to encourage people to pray for one hour. You can find his thoughts at http://onehourprayer.blogspot.com/. Remember that the first step towards creating a church planting movement is Abundant Prayer.