Last year my home church, Crosspoint Community Church established it’s first “site” or campus in a local winery. The venue is intimate, DVDs of the sermon are played to convey the message and a large percentage of the people who now call Crosspoint in the Vines their home were not in a church 18 months ago. In a few months, Access Church will go public representing the first church plant that Crosspoint has launched. This affirms one of the two primary missions of the local church – “to care for the poor and plant churches” according to Lead Pastor, Steve Redden.
In the book “Becoming a Level FIVE Multiplying Church Field Guide” (by Todd Wilson and Dave Ferguson with Alan Hirsch) the authors identify five levels of multiplying churches as follows:
- The primary characterization of Level 1 churches are “subtraction, scarcity, and survival.”
- The primary characterization of Level 2 churches are “tension, scarcity, survival, and growth.”
- The primary characterization of Level 3 churches are “addition, growth and accumulation.”
- The primary characterization of Level 4 churches are “discontent, new scorecards and reproducing at all levels.”
- The primary characterization of Level 5 churches are “multiplying, releasing and sending.”
I found the book with the self-assessment helpful to determine where congregations are on the multiplication continuum. Read “Becoming a Level FIVE Multiplying Church Field Guide” and administer the self-assessment to determine where you are on the multiplication continuum. Here are a few questions to help you reflect and move forward based on your assessment:
- Where are we today?
- Where can we grow?
- What level do we want to become?
- What steps can we take to get there?
- What will we do?
In the upcoming blogs I will take a closer look at each of the 5 Levels of Multiplication to illustrate the characteristics above with questions to coach your team to the next level.