Historically the Assemblies of God has looked at the net gain of open and closed churches. While this tells us the number of buildings that have been shut down it is not right to compare these two without looking at the effectiveness of the churches opened versus the ones closed.

We have pulled the information for the last three years and here is what it looks like. Read the rest of this entry »

Multiplicity was undeniably powerful this year. It was amazing to observe a group of speakers who had not collaborated and who had very little guidance from us end up basically reinforcing some common “big rock” themes. Now that I’ve had some time to digest what I heard, here are the key points it seems that God wanted us to hear.

1. The centrality of Christ- Hirsch reminded us that the foundation of everything is Jesus. We need to know Jesus accurately. Then we will get His Mission right. Then our ecclesiology will be right.

2. Making disciples is what we are called to do. Not disciples of us, but rather disciples of Jesus. We are all on a journey of yielding to the Holy Spirit as He conforms us to the image of Christ. It’s a journey that never ends and making disciples basically boils down to helping each other look more like Jesus.

3. Bob Roberts (a great Southern Baptist friend) made it clear to us that his observation of how church multiplication movements happen is that they always start with people who expect and actively pursue the empowerment of the Spirit. His equation for the emergence of a church planting movement was Spirit, pragmatics, theology… in that order. All three must be present in that order. He stated that he is unaware of a church multiplication movement that was catalyzed simply by theology. First and foremost a church multiplication movement is catalyzed by the Spirit and by people moved on by the Spirit. Pragmatics are the systems and organizational dimensions that channel the activities of Spirit-led people toward disciple making relationships and anointed missional activity. Sound theological foundations keep the organic structures that result from going out of bounds from the perspective of truth. These same ideas were reflected in comments made by every other speaker. 

Those are some of my initial and admittedly imperfect reflections on what I heard and experienced. I’m aware of at least a couple of blog sites where the authors have posted their own reflections. John Van Pay’s thoughts can be viewed here. Trinity Jordan shares his thoughts here. If you are aware of other blog reflections on Multiplicity, let me know and I’ll post them on this blog as well.

Thursday, December 4, 2008- 9am- Right now, I’m listening to Dave Ferguson talk about multi-site multiplication. He says their core value is reproducing churches. He says that the churches that are reproductive, reproduce at the smallest unit…they reproduce disciples, small groups, churches and networks. Powerful stuff!

Friday, December 5, 2008- 6am- OK, it’s Friday morning and I’m heading out for day two at Multiplicity. As I reflect on yesterday, I observed several unplanned “sub-themes” that ran throughout the day. 

1. We’re called to make disciples.

2. The foundation of discipleship is relationship with God and people.

3. Healthy churches are built on a foundation of redemptive relationships.

4. The diversity of the AG is an incredible strength. Everyday we are becoming a family that looks more like heaven.

5.  The level of enthusiasm for building new bridges to connect with people far from God is higher than ever.

More to come….. 

Friday Morning December 5, 2008- 9am- Alan Hirsch is talking now. He’s talking about a round table that occurred in Luther’s study on Reformation Sunday. It was a convening of key thought leaders from around the world. The question was “do we need a reformation?” Alan suggestion was that maybe what we need is not reformation but rather “refounding.” Going back to the basics of who Jesus is. He says that Christology determines missiology which determines our ecclesiology.

Dave Mills was outstanding. He talked about building bridges of connection to communities through meeting felt needs with no strings attached. Encouraged intentionality in kindness.

Bob Roberts is really hit the ball out of the park with his thoughts on being a disciple making church first. He basically said we need to stop planting churches and start making disciples. Churches emerge out of the seminal activity of discipleship.

Dave Olson told the truth and gave us hope that better days are ahead for the American church.

Dr. George Wood wrapped up the day with a powerful exegesis of the Acts account of the church as Ephesus.

It was a phenomenal gathering!