The Church Multiplication Network Idea..
I thought it would be good to share the text of a presentation I was asked to prepare for General Council, but was never given the opportunity to present. It was supposed to be given on Thursday afternoon, but all of the voting and very passionate deliberations that took place knocked me off the docket. If the opportunity had been afforded me, this is what I planned to say. Please read it and share your thoughts. By the way, the first MX9 church launched last Sunday (September 16, 2007) with 125 people!
I’m Steve Pike, Director of the Assemblies of God Church Multiplication Network and Administrator of US Missions.
In 1989 while serving as senior high pastor at Calvary Church in Naperville, Illinois, God used the “Decade of Harvest” initiative to place the seed of church planting in my heart. I had never previously considered church planting as an option, but the idea and excitement that surrounded the Decade of Harvest initiative motivated me to ask the Lord, “As a participant in this fellowship of churches, how should I be involved in planting?” For my wife and me God’s answer was to send us to Utah, the state with the nation’s lowest percentage of Christians. God called us to plant a church. 10 years later, I stood on an Easter Sunday morning surrounded by 638 people that had been reached by the ministries of the church God had planted through us. Our new church had also partnered with or parented 5 other new churches in Utah during the decade of the 90’s. The way I thought about church, life, evangelism and ministry in general was changed forever.
I’ve heard people call the “Decade of Harvest” a failure. Well don’t say that to me. And don’t say that to the thousands of people whose destinies have been altered for eternity because the leadership of this movement cared enough to challenge their churches and leaders to go where they had never gone before. For me and for thousands of others, the Decade of Harvest was a potent seed planted in our hearts that is still bearing fruit today.
The Decade of Harvest moved me out of my comfort zone into an incredible adventure of faith. It taught me that national initiatives can and do make a big difference. That’s why I am proud to be a part of a new initiative that is informed by the past but built for the future. It’s called the Church Multiplication Network. It’s based on a simple idea. Let’s all use everything that God has given us to help each other plant as many churches as we possibly can. The Church Multiplication Network is built around a ministry plan that has been carefully crafted and reviewed by leaders from all perspectives across national regions, networks and cultures. It’s designed to leverage our collective resources to maximize our cumulative effectiveness. It is laser focused on delivering resources and assistance to local churches and leaders to reach their utmost potential for multiplying the presence of God’s Kingdom in the communities in which they serve. It is an idea whose time has come.
America needs this church to rise up in the anointing of the Holy Spirit and reach lost people. The need is astounding. As Americans, we’ve been lulled to sleep by a false sense of security regarding the spiritual condition of our nation. Some pollsters have indicated that 43% of Americans regularly attend church. Their figures are based on conventional polling techniques that involve contacting a sample number of people and asking about their church attendance habits. One researcher wondered if that number indicated what people are actually doing. So he acquired the reported attendance figures from the national offices of all of the major and minor American church organizations. His research includes Pentecostal, evangelical, mainline, orthodox and catholic. He found that on any given Sunday only 17.5% of Americans are actually in church. That means that on average 82.5% of Americans are not connecting with a worshipping community of believers on a regular basis. That’s not OK with me. I don’t think that’s OK with us! Somebody’s got to do something. We’ve got to do something. It’s got to be blessed with God’s anointing and it’s got to be different than what we’ve been doing! That is what the Church Multiplication Network is all about. Together we can reach America!
The idea of the Network was born in a moment of visitation during a meeting of the Executive Presbytery in January of this year. God spoke through Brother Nam Soo Kim and our key leaders were anointed with a fresh passion for reaching the lost through the best known method of evangelism…planting churches. Brother Trask and the Executive Presbytery not only expressed their passion for planting in words, but they have now indicated their strong endorsement of this Network by investing $2 million in seed money to provide for a healthy launch of this collaborative effort. US Missions and the Reach America Coalition are active sponsors as well. Our target is MX9. We believe that together we can plant or commit to plant 1000 churches over the next two years. It’s a God-sized dream. But I am firmly convinced that God has called us out for this moment to be part of an unprecedented surge of birthing new communities of faith all over the place.
In the coming years the Church Multiplication Network plan gives us a way to work together to catalyze the planting of thousands of new harvest focused churches all over this nation. I invite you to offer what you’ve got and work together to reach this needy nation. We need prayer partners, financial investors, partner churches, parent churches, church planters, church planting team members to say yes to God. We will help you connect what you’ve got with the resources of others so that new life giving churches can be birthed everywhere. I invite you to visit the new www.churchmultiplicationnetwork.org website and discover the details of how you and your church can benefit from and participate in this emerging Network. It’s not like anything else we’ve ever done. God is calling us to go where we’ve never gone before. I invite you to join with me and do what I did nearly 20 years ago. Ask the Lord to help you know how you can be involved in planting a church! We are a movement that highly values the empowerment of God’s Holy Spirit! It’s time for our actions to line up with our affirmations! If we really want to reach America, let’s plant thousands of Spirit empowered churches strategically structured to reach the lost and see God change the lives of millions of people! God bless you and thank you for allowing me to share my heart with you today.
I’m Steve Pike, Director of the Assemblies of God Church Multiplication Network and Administrator of US Missions.
In 1989 while serving as senior high pastor at Calvary Church in Naperville, Illinois, God used the “Decade of Harvest” initiative to place the seed of church planting in my heart. I had never previously considered church planting as an option, but the idea and excitement that surrounded the Decade of Harvest initiative motivated me to ask the Lord, “As a participant in this fellowship of churches, how should I be involved in planting?” For my wife and me God’s answer was to send us to Utah, the state with the nation’s lowest percentage of Christians. God called us to plant a church. 10 years later, I stood on an Easter Sunday morning surrounded by 638 people that had been reached by the ministries of the church God had planted through us. Our new church had also partnered with or parented 5 other new churches in Utah during the decade of the 90’s. The way I thought about church, life, evangelism and ministry in general was changed forever.
I’ve heard people call the “Decade of Harvest” a failure. Well don’t say that to me. And don’t say that to the thousands of people whose destinies have been altered for eternity because the leadership of this movement cared enough to challenge their churches and leaders to go where they had never gone before. For me and for thousands of others, the Decade of Harvest was a potent seed planted in our hearts that is still bearing fruit today.
The Decade of Harvest moved me out of my comfort zone into an incredible adventure of faith. It taught me that national initiatives can and do make a big difference. That’s why I am proud to be a part of a new initiative that is informed by the past but built for the future. It’s called the Church Multiplication Network. It’s based on a simple idea. Let’s all use everything that God has given us to help each other plant as many churches as we possibly can. The Church Multiplication Network is built around a ministry plan that has been carefully crafted and reviewed by leaders from all perspectives across national regions, networks and cultures. It’s designed to leverage our collective resources to maximize our cumulative effectiveness. It is laser focused on delivering resources and assistance to local churches and leaders to reach their utmost potential for multiplying the presence of God’s Kingdom in the communities in which they serve. It is an idea whose time has come.
America needs this church to rise up in the anointing of the Holy Spirit and reach lost people. The need is astounding. As Americans, we’ve been lulled to sleep by a false sense of security regarding the spiritual condition of our nation. Some pollsters have indicated that 43% of Americans regularly attend church. Their figures are based on conventional polling techniques that involve contacting a sample number of people and asking about their church attendance habits. One researcher wondered if that number indicated what people are actually doing. So he acquired the reported attendance figures from the national offices of all of the major and minor American church organizations. His research includes Pentecostal, evangelical, mainline, orthodox and catholic. He found that on any given Sunday only 17.5% of Americans are actually in church. That means that on average 82.5% of Americans are not connecting with a worshipping community of believers on a regular basis. That’s not OK with me. I don’t think that’s OK with us! Somebody’s got to do something. We’ve got to do something. It’s got to be blessed with God’s anointing and it’s got to be different than what we’ve been doing! That is what the Church Multiplication Network is all about. Together we can reach America!
The idea of the Network was born in a moment of visitation during a meeting of the Executive Presbytery in January of this year. God spoke through Brother Nam Soo Kim and our key leaders were anointed with a fresh passion for reaching the lost through the best known method of evangelism…planting churches. Brother Trask and the Executive Presbytery not only expressed their passion for planting in words, but they have now indicated their strong endorsement of this Network by investing $2 million in seed money to provide for a healthy launch of this collaborative effort. US Missions and the Reach America Coalition are active sponsors as well. Our target is MX9. We believe that together we can plant or commit to plant 1000 churches over the next two years. It’s a God-sized dream. But I am firmly convinced that God has called us out for this moment to be part of an unprecedented surge of birthing new communities of faith all over the place.
In the coming years the Church Multiplication Network plan gives us a way to work together to catalyze the planting of thousands of new harvest focused churches all over this nation. I invite you to offer what you’ve got and work together to reach this needy nation. We need prayer partners, financial investors, partner churches, parent churches, church planters, church planting team members to say yes to God. We will help you connect what you’ve got with the resources of others so that new life giving churches can be birthed everywhere. I invite you to visit the new www.churchmultiplicationnetwork.org website and discover the details of how you and your church can benefit from and participate in this emerging Network. It’s not like anything else we’ve ever done. God is calling us to go where we’ve never gone before. I invite you to join with me and do what I did nearly 20 years ago. Ask the Lord to help you know how you can be involved in planting a church! We are a movement that highly values the empowerment of God’s Holy Spirit! It’s time for our actions to line up with our affirmations! If we really want to reach America, let’s plant thousands of Spirit empowered churches strategically structured to reach the lost and see God change the lives of millions of people! God bless you and thank you for allowing me to share my heart with you today.
posted by Steve Pike @ 11:34 AM
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