By Steve Pike, Director, AG Church Multiplication Network

The recent trend toward incarnating the Gospel in tangible acts of compassion is an overdue mid-course correction for our multiplication methodologies. When appropriately implemented, building “compassion bridges” to connect with sociologically isolated “tribes” is  a crucial part of an effective discipleship and evangelism strategy. Compassion bridges demonstrate God’s compassion “with skin on”- they make the Kingdom tangible to people who need to know God and that is a good thing. Walking the talk is way better than just a lot of talking.

However, we must avoid the tendency to “over-compensate” to the degree that we replace God’s power to save with our own efforts to demonstrate His compassion. Starting a new community of disciples is a supernatural action of God. We co-labor with Him to make it so. In our efforts to partner with Jesus as He builds His Church, we must always be dependent on the Only One who is able to save. Our good works show God in 3D and are part of His plan to demonstrate His kindness. But our good works can not save. 

We must not lose site of the reality that being used by God to bring to life a community of disciples is a supernatural endeavor from first to last. We are absolutely dependent on God to do what we cannot do. We are even dependent on Him to empower us to do what we CAN do. Only God can empower us to authentically love the unlovable. And only God can transform a person from the inside out.

The road to planting a church has become cluttered with a lot of voices proclaiming “this is the way to do it.” As a church multiplier our pathway forward is actually quite simple. “Trust” and “Obey.” Know God and do what He says. Keep first things first and the rest will follow…

Wow. I just spent the last three days “drinking from a fire hydrant” of preachers and teachers on the subject of starting new churches that change the world.

The conference was hosted at First Assembly of God in Griffin, Georgia where Dr. Randy Valimont is pastor. Randy has been at First Assembly for 16 years and his story is extraordinary. The short story is that when he came, the church had about 400 attendees. Today, they serve a church family of 4000. But a far more important metric is their commitment to missions and mission. They give generously ($18 million + over 16 years and rising rapidly), but perhaps more importantly they are actively involved in the mission of Christ in literally hundreds of practical and powerful ways. Randy believes their commitment to anointed transformational preaching, persistent prayer and generosity toward missions accounts for their ministry success. They have been involved in planting many churches overseas and are becoming even more active in starting new churches in the US. So just being at the church was encouraging and inspirational to me.

The convener of the conference was Dr. Slavic Radchuk. Slavic came to the US from the Ukraine. His testimony is amazing and his passion for expanding the Kingdom of God is legendary. His extraordinary efforts at evangelism earned him the title “The Billy Graham of the Ukraine.” His heart is still strong for reaching his homeland, but he has added the United States as the benefactor of his considerable evangelistic anointing. He hopes to be a catalyst for planting 200 new churches in the state of Georgia!

I was a speaker along with Phil Wall, Tommy White, Dave Divine and Rick Dubose. Every single speaker “hit the ball out of the park.” I’m fairly well versed on matters of church planting and I found myself thrilled with the new information and insights I gleaned from the slate of speakers. Just hanging out with them was awesome and enriching. Iron sharpening iron.

A big highlight was the opportunity to personally meet Reinhard Bonnke. This man is simply amazing. God is using him right now in Nigeria in phenomenal ways. He has personally preached to more people live than any human being. In one meeting he spoke face to face with 1.7 million. In one crusade, over 3 million signed decision cards indicating their desire to follow Christ. Reinhard is passionate about planting churches. He understands the power of partnership between the evangelist and the planter. He brings in the harvest, but he depends on existing and new churches to serve as storehouses for the harvest.

Bottom line… three days of really good stuff!