How to Multiply Churches

Nick Klinkenberg

• Publisher: Castle Publishing Ltd
• eBook ISBN: 9780473536992
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

'The dream is to ignite church planting movements, churches that plant churches, like an infectious godly virus!'

Inside:

- Why multiplication?

- Benefits of new networks and movements.

- What is church?

- How to make disciples.

A simple and powerful 'how to' guide to effectively start and multiply new churches.

Appendix: The Power of Networks

Transcript of a talk by Pastor Steve Graham, presented at the 2011 Vision Church International (VCI) Retreat, New Zealand. Used by permission.

The theme for this year’s retreat is: ‘Relationships… help the pieces of the puzzle come together.’ I wonder what you think when you read that? I suspect that for many of us we think that it is saying that if we take the time to connect with other leaders, then the pieces of the puzzle of our ministry or of our church will begin to come together. I want to suggest that there is a much deeper way to understand that sentence: that as we connect we realise we are one part of ‘the puzzle’; that ‘the puzzle’ is not my ministry or my church but ‘the puzzle’ is actually the network of churches – and things begin to make sense because I find a place to fit within a network of churches.

I want to show this from three aspects of the letters of Paul in the New Testament. I want to look at the little bits that we often skim, but when we look at them together, we get a picture of how the early church functioned – a picture that is incredibly energising and will blow our minds about how strongly they thought in terms of a network of churches and how radically they lived that out in practical ways. Firstly, I want to look at the little bits at the beginning of the letters, where we meet Paul and his co-writers. Secondly, I want to look at the little bits normally at the end, where Paul greets individuals and we meet Paul and his co-workers. As I said, normally we skip over these introductions and endings to get to the theology in the middle of the letters, but taken together, they have quite an impact and give us a picture of the life of the early church. Finally I want to show how New Testament scholars view the early church and summarise this picture that emerges.

The ‘big idea’ is that the early church was highly networked. The question then is firstly, what does this say about how we think about our ministries and our churches and being part of a network of churches? And secondly, what practical steps do we need to take to see the VCI network of churches develop and move forward into new dimensions – to use the current buzzwords, how do we take this network ‘to the next level’?

Paul and his co-writers

We often talk about Paul and his letters. We see Paul as a great apostle and know he wrote 13 letters. However, consider the following:

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes… (1 Corinthians 1:1)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother… (2 Corinthians 1:1)

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus… (Philippians 1:1)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother… (Colossians 1:1)

Paul, Silas and Timothy… (1 Thessalonians 1:1)

Paul, Silas and Timothy… (2 Thessalonians 1:1)

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother… (Philemon 1:1)

Yes, Paul wrote 13 letters. However seven of those 13 – more than half – have co-writers. If you then consider that three of the other letters – the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) – involve Paul writing directly to a co-worker, then that leaves only three letters where Paul writes to a church by himself: Romans, Galatians and Ephesians. Then I think it is possible to see reasons why each of these were actually the exceptions to his normal practice of having co-authors, e.g. Romans was written to introduce Paul to the church in Rome in preparation for his visit and to state his understanding of the gospel. Galatians is a specific defence of Paul’s apostleship, and Ephesians is something of a generic circular letter.

I believe Paul was deliberately modelling something by this co-authoring of letters. Paul presented ministry not as the great individual but as a team. This is very countercultural for us Westerners who have been raised on the model of the great heroic individual leader – the John Wayne kind of figure who does not need anyone and boldly leads as a loner. This was theologically important for Paul. We have a trinitarian foundation to our faith. The Trinity says ultimate reality is relational – it is community. Paul modelled this in ministry and he took the trouble to model it in his letters. Ministry was done in relationship and in partnership with others, in a network of ministries.

Imagine a letter to the churches of Vision Net­work, that comes from well-respected leaders, that communicates something in itself and has another dimension of authority and breadth.

Secondly, let’s look at the little bits normally at the ends of the letters where Paul often greets people and mentions them by name – often his co-workers. Estimates vary, but scholars identify between 81 and 95 co-workers of Paul in the New Testament, depending on how ‘co-worker’ is defined. If we just stick to individuals who Paul names in his letters, there are 36 (see the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, The IVP Bible Dictionary Series, Gerald F Hawthorne. Published by IVP Academic, 1993). These are names we may have heard of – people like Andronicus, Apollos, Aquila and Priscilla, Barnabas, Epaphroditus, Junia, Luke, Mark, Onesimus, Silas, Timothy and Titus.

Let’s look at some of the...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Why this Book?
• Why Start New Churches?
• Why Start New Networks and Movements?
• Multiplication
• What is Church?
• Discipleship and Making Disciples
• How to Start Churches and Multiply Them
• Appendix: The Power of Networks