Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – Evangelism and Church Planting: Implementing the Ministry Multiplication Cycle

By Peter Law

Multiplication not Addition
Basic to Jesus’ approach is the concept of multiplication, as distinct from addition. From the beginning, Jesus had commissioned his disciples to go out two by two. When he sent them out with his final charge to “be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts1:8b) he sent them in his own authority to make disciples of all nations. He had already promised that “…this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14) and in entrusting the task to the twelve, Christ anticipated vital, exponential growth.

David Garrison explains that church-planting movements typically multiply rapidly, become self-reproducing, and are indigenous, generating from within.³ The latter is most significant in that although an initial church plant may be started by churches or mission groups coming in from outside the culture, momentum will usually shift to where the movement “looks, acts, and feels homegrown.”⁴

Healthy churches stem from healthy attitudes toward outside assistance.

Developing churches in keeping with the Three-Self Formula introduced by Henry Venn, the general secretary of the Church Missionary Society in London in the mid-nineteenth century, these newly planted churches are usually encouraged to be self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating. This strategy of planting church-planting churches, and encouraging that philosophy among developing church leaders, ensures that the idea of multiplication is embedded within the DNA of those new churches and their offspring.

Removing the Scaffolding
Healthy churches stem from healthy attitudes toward outside assistance. Where unhealthy dependence has not been created, churches flourish in the context of trusting God to provide for their need of leadership, finance, and vision. Hudson Taylor identified the importance of keeping the church indigenous. His original strategy shifted when he began to realize that the Chinese Church would never reach its potential maturity while foreign missionaries occupied critical leadership and decision-making positions within the Church.

He wrote, “I look upon foreign missionaries as the scaffolding around a rising building. The sooner it can be dispensed with, the better; or rather, the sooner it can be transferred to other places, to serve the same temporary use, the better.”⁵ In Moldova, Eastern Europe’s poorest nation, church planting is being conducted with Taylor’s thought in mind, encouraging indigenous independence as soon as is practically possible.

One Case in Point
The Ministry Multiplication Cycle was introduced and implemented in Moldova by Crossover Communications International at the invitation of local Christians. Now, after the establishment of over eighty such churches in Moldova, ministry strategy and initiative is designed and taken by the Moldovan Christians.

Evangelism takes the form of outreaches into townships and villages in an effort to support new church planters in their work of establishing a church in their community. Short-term mission support teams serve alongside church planters drawn not only from Western countries, but increasingly from Moldova.

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Dr. Peter Law is president of Crossover-Australia and vice-president of Crossover-USA, overseeing international ministries. When not leading short-term mission teams, he speaks at churches, colleges, schools, and mission conferences, sharing his vision for building God’s kingdom worldwide.