Fervent Prayer
The power for the life and ministry of church planters comes from fellowship with the Lord in prayer. God’s power and grace flow in response to the prayers of His people. Leaders must demonstrate reliance on God through prayer in public and in private. This is essential in the formation of new disciples of Jesus, as well as new leaders, and new churches. When members of multiplying churches hear testimonies and gain personal experience, they discover for themselves that God answers the prayers of His children. The ECC national coordinator is responsible for recruiting, organizing and training local volunteer prayer champions. These prayer champions will develop prayer warriors to pray for church multiplication and support the trainers and church planters in prayer.
Fervent prayer must characterize the life and ministry of every church leader and member if we are to plant strong, multiplying churches. Evangelists must pray for the needs of those who are hearing the Good News. As God performs signs and wonders in response to prayer, barriers to faith are broken down and people are converted. New believers must be taught to pray and be encouraged to pray. Local churches should organize effective prayer ministries to support church multiplication. Prayer needs and answers to prayer should be communicated both locally and internationally through prayer chains, printed prayer guides, email prayer alerts, websites, blogs, etc. Our God is a prayer-answering God; church multiplication moves forward in the power of prayer.
John 15:5-8, Acts 1:8-14, Acts 2:42, Acts 4:23-31, Acts 11:5, Acts 13:3,Acts 14:23 
Abundant Gospel Sowing
Abundant Gospel sowing is the use of both personal and mass communication methods to share the Gospel with as many people as possible. Abundant Gospel sowing maximizes the number of people who hear and understand the Good News of Jesus.
The heart of abundant Gospel sowing is personal evangelism. New believers must be trained to share their testimony and the plan of salvation with all their friends and family. New believers must also be trained to teach the ones they lead to Christ to share their testimony and the plan of salvation with their friends and family. This means that new believers must be given simple and effective training to share their testimony, as well as training to clearly explain the way of salvation through repentance and faith in Christ. When believers frequently share the Good News through these family and friendship networks, many people hear and understand the claims of Christ.
Personal evangelism can lead to mass evangelism through organized campaigns of house-to-house evangelism as well as open-air evangelism of all sorts. Electronic media like radio, video, audio recordings, Internet, etc. can also be used to sow the Gospel abundantly. When these methods are used, it is essential to establish a feedback loop and apply response filtering to find out who is truly interested in following Jesus.
A feedback loop is a way for those who hear the Good News from a tract, radio or other media to let church members know that they want to learn more about how to put their trust in Christ. For example, when the Jesus film is shown to a large group, invite people who want to know more to come forward. When the Gospel is preached over radio, let listeners know how they can phone, text or visit the broadcaster to find out more about following Christ in the context of a newly planted church.
Response filtering means inviting those who are interested in following Christ to demonstrate their commitment by getting involved in the fellowship of a church. A clear call to commitment demonstrated by action will filter out the curious from those who are truly committed to following Christ.
Abundant Gospel sowing must always lead to fellowship and discipleship in a local church to be effective.
Evangelism methods should be evaluated based on their ability to lead many people to Christ. They should also be evaluated on their ability to put seekers in personal contact with a church so they can be fully evangelized, discipled and trained for ministry in and through the local church.
Matthew 13:1-9, Luke 10:1-24, Acts 2:14-47, 2 Corinthians 9:6
Intentional Church Planting
For churches to multiply on a continual basis, followers of Jesus must be intentional about church planting. It is not enough for denominational leaders to plan for church planting. It is not enough for pastors to envision church planting. Church leaders and members must be inspired to work together to intentionally plant churches which are able and willing to plant even more churches. This is the only way to saturate a population segment or people group with the Good News of Jesus. This is the only way to saturate an area with disciples. The best biblical example of intentional church planting is the church at Antioch, which intentionally evangelized Greeks and intentionally sent out Paul and Barnabas to plant churches.
Church planting partnerships between national church denominations and OMS are committed to the intentional multiplication of churches. The planting of new churches must not be left to chance. Specific dates must be set for each church to plant a new church. Followers of Jesus must pray for, plan for, train for, give for and work to plant new churches on purpose. Church planting is the responsibility of every church. Every church member must understand that the planting of daughter churches is a major priority of their church. This is an essential part of the spiritual DNA of the church. ECC coordinators and trainers must help local church leaders make specific plans to plant daughter churches. They must ensure that the local church leaders have the skills and knowledge needed to plant daughter churches. The ECC Coordinator and trainers must then hold them accountable in the church planting process.
Without intentional church planting, churches often become stagnant and self-centered. They spend the vast majority of their budgets on programs that serve existing church members rather than investing time, money and prayer to bring salvation to the lost by planting new churches. With intentional church planting, members and leaders are focused on serving others. God blesses their efforts.
Acts 13–20
Scriptural Authority
For effective, healthy church multiplication, leaders and members must recognize that the Bible is the authoritative rule of faith and practice. It is important for Christian leaders and authors to help us understand God’s will for our lives through a sound interpretation and application of the Bible. But our ultimate authority for living the Christian life and multiplying churches is the Bible, not human opinion, earthly wisdom or the tradition of the elders. God’s Word can be easily understood by His children who are responsible for applying it in our churches and homes.
Evangelists share the Word of God with conviction that it is true. New believers are taught to trust the promises of God’s Word. Church leaders are taught to search the Scriptures for biblical answers to the problems they face at home, at work and in the church.
It is essential for newly planted churches to equip their members to study the Bible on their own. Specific methods such as participative Bible studies, inductive Bible study methods, chronological Bible teaching and other methods will enable local church leaders and members to feed themselves on God’s Word.
Deuteronomy 8:3, Joshua 1:8, Matthew 4:4, 2 Timothy 3:16
Local Leadership
Church-planting efforts often start with a church planter going to a new area to make friends and share the Gospel. But it is very important that this church planter from outside the area quickly begin to train, equip and release local leaders for the newly planted church. The new church must not become dependent on the outside leader. Local leaders have both the cultural knowledge and the friends and local influence needed to help the church grow. If the church planter does not quickly empower and multiply local leaders, he will soon face two problems:
•He will become overworked and exhausted because he is doing all the work by himself.
•The new church will become weak and unable to do anything without the outsider initiating and directing it.
An effective application of 2 Timothy 2:2, "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others," will prevent this kind of unhealthy dependency. This ECC partnership deploys church planting trainers. The trainers’ job is to identify and equip local men and women to plant and multiply churches. It is not the job of the ECC trainer to directly lead or pastor these newly planted churches. This task is for the local leaders.
Acts 14:21-25, Acts 20:13-38, 1 Thessalonians 1:5-8, Titus 1:5.
Lay Leadership
One of the keys to effective church multiplication is the mobilization of the entire church membership for evangelism, discipleship and church multiplication. Churches that rely on a few paid professionals for leadership cannot respond to the numerous needs of the people around them. Churches that equip volunteer workers (initially unpaid, nonprofessional workers) to evangelize make disciples and start new churches are much more likely to grow, multiply and saturate an area with the Good News of Jesus.
When we speak of lay leaders, we are talking about volunteers or bivocational workers who do not rely exclusively on the church for their income. Many lay leaders are unpaid volunteers. When we speak of lay leaders, we do not mean that these unpaid workers will never be authorized to baptize or serve the Lord’s Supper. In fact, many can and should receive that authority. Through a process of on-the-job training, ministry and fruitfulness, these lay leaders will be recommended to the denomination and will be authorized to baptize and serve Holy Communion.
The use of lay leaders for multiplication requires four things:
• Effective, continual, on-the-job training of lay leaders.
• Effective delegation to lay leaders of both responsibility and authority for church planting tasks.
• Effective supervision of lay leaders as they carry out their church-planting ministry.
• Effective encouragement and pastoral care for lay leaders so they don’t become discouraged and worn out.
Acts 8:1 (compare with Acts 11:19)
Cell Church, House Church or Village Church
House churches, cell churches and village churches all provide the spiritual fellowship and intimacy that followers of Jesus need to grow in their faith. Because they have simple structures and are participative by nature, they are readily reproducible. Large complex structures operated by ministerial specialists are hard to reproduce. But small, simple house churches, cell groups and village churches are relatively easy to reproduce.
If churches are to multiply without delay, they must begin meeting as soon as new contacts are willing to come together for fellowship around the Word of God. Spending time and money to purchase, rent, or build buildings for meetings often delays and distracts from the vital spiritual ministry of evangelism and discipleship that must form the foundation of the new church. In the New Testament Church, the most common place for churches to meet was in homes. They also met in the temple King Herod had built years before in Jerusalem, as well as in a school building. Modern churches have met in homes, schools, offices, factories and restaurants. Buildings are not the key to healthy church life. Faith, love, prayer, fellowship and effective teaching are. Churches that multiply spend the vast majority of their time, money and prayer in spiritual ministry. If local believers choose to purchase or build a building with their own resources, they are free to do so. But it is neither essential nor required.
When churches begin to multiply rapidly, it is unlikely that their tithes and offerings can build enough buildings to hold all the believers, at least initially. This is why it is so important to begin with the reproducible pattern of meeting in locally provided facilities such as homes or offices.
Acts 2:46, Acts 10:24-27, Acts 16:40, Acts 20:20
Churches Planting Churches
Local churches must take the responsibility for planting new churches rather than wait for other agencies or denominational structures to take the initiative. Every church must be committed to planting one or more daughter churches that is able and willing to plant its own daughter church. Each congregation in every generation must have as a part of its core values the idea that it is responsible for planting and cultivating new churches. Our Every Community for Christ partnership provides trainers to equip believers to plant first-generation churches. This training must be done in such a way that first- generation churches can plant second-generation churches, and they can plant a third-generation and so on. Every church is responsible for planting daughter churches. Every pastoral worker is responsible for training other pastoral workers. The equipping ministry of the ECC trainers is designed to make this a reality.
Rapid Reproduction
Every church must pray, plan and take action to start new churches without delay. This requires simple, effective, reproducible training solutions to form new leaders. It means always looking for opportunities to start new groups. It means equipping and releasing lay leaders for meaningful ministry in new churches. The idea of rapid reproduction must be implanted into the core values and the DNA of each new church. A key to the rapid reproduction of churches is a training program for church leaders that includes a timeline for reproduction.
Acts 13:49 Acts 14:23
Healthy Churches
Weak, sick and infected organisms do not grow and multiply easily. This is true for churches as well. Healthy churches incorporate all members in the life and ministry of the church through:
• Good Christian education and discipleship training.
• Service to the community.
• Evangelistic outreach.
• Worship.
• Generous giving.
• Ministry to one another.
• Accountability.
Healthy churches expect their members to forgive one another and to live at peace with each other. They promote holiness of heart and life by teaching and praying that each member will live a life of faith and devotion to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Churches that meet in homes and have lay leaders do not require a large monetary budget for effective ministry. Even with only a few members, when tithes and offerings go to evangelism, discipleship and serving needy people, rather than rent and pastoral salaries, there is an abundance of money to do the work of the ministry.
Rapid Incorporation of New Converts Into the Life and Ministry of the Church
New believers should be trained and given the opportunity to immediately share their testimony of salvation with friends and family members. They should be encouraged and expected to pass on to others the things they have learned about living in Christ (2 Timothy 2:2). As soon as they understand the basis of their salvation, have expressed sincere repentance from sin and desire to follow Christ in baptism, they should be baptized and given even greater responsibility in the local church. These new believers must learn to use their gifts, money and abilities to serve their brothers and sisters and help plant daughter churches. From the start, they must be involved in continual discipling, training and supervision so that they grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus and so that they have pastoral protection from the enemy of their souls. The passion and zeal of the new believer should not be stifled. It should instead be guided, refined and released.
Extra-biblical and unbiblical barriers to baptism should be avoided. New members should be helped to understand how their gifts, abilities and resources can be used for the multiplication of churches and cells.
Just as in the book of Acts, we actively encourage new believers to open their homes and start new churches. With effective training and supervision, these new churches will reach the new believers’ circle of friends and relatives. They will multiply in ways that would not be possible if a new believer was excluded from leading the group.
Acts 16:33
On-the-Job Training for Church Leadership
Churches that grow and multiply rapidly must be able to train local pastors and other leaders right where they live and work. If the only leaders who can lead a church are those who have been trained far away in a seminary or Bible institute, the church will not have enough leaders to multiply frequently. Churches that train new believers in the context of the local church’s church planting ministry are the most likely to multiply churches. To do this, training must be provided on a continual basis and at times when working men and women can attend. Training must be biblical, clear and understandable, as well as practical. Effective training of adults requires learners to immediately put into practice what they have learned.
Rapid multiplication necessitates rapid leadership development.
Churches must be able to provide on-the-job training of new believers. In this training, they must be sure to equip and release new believers to train “faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Care must be taken to give significant responsibility, authority and mentoring to trainees as they are being trained.
2 Timothy 2:2, Acts 14:23
