Church Multiplication

Tom Blaylock
Director of Church Multiplication

Short-term Goals

These are my goals for the next 18 months, through August of 2008.

1. Facilitate at least three regionally based church planting initiatives utilizing a LEAD Team strategy. Characteristics of these initiatives include:

Three to six churches taking a high degree of ownership for planting new churches in their region expressed through investing prayer, people, and finances.
Launch teams of 30-50 adults.
A commitment to multiple church plants in the region.
Leadership of the LEAD Team will be provided by one of the participating pastors and facilitated by the Director of Church Multiplication.

2. Raise enough funding at the national level so that we can partner with these LEAD Teams by providing systems help (assessment, coaching, recruiting, training, etc.) and 15% of the funding for the new plant over a two-year period.

3. Assist the two United Brethren church plants that are currently receiving funding (Gordon Kettel in Grand Ledge, Mich; and Bryan Converse in Maineville, Ohio). My goal is to see them both successfully launched within this period.

Long-term Goals

20-30% of UB churches directly involved in church planting within ten years.
Several (three or more) healthy, third-generation church plants.
A model regional church multiplication movement up and running.

Current Realities

After a little more than one year serving in this role, I have identified the following realities. These realities, and our ability to appropriately respond to these realities will directly impact our success.

1. As a group, we are suffering from a lack of credibility and lack of confidence when it comes to church multiplication.

2. We have made several strategic mistakes in recent years in how we have recruited, assessed, trained, and funded our church plants. The resulting low-level of performance and negative momentum must be turned around.

3. We have a Director of Church Multiplication who has two days per week to lead us. While this is not fulltime, it is a meaningful amount of time and should produce results.

4. We have very few resources to invest in church planting and currently (outside of Michigan and maybe Ohio) can only offer financial help with systems.

5. We have good buy-in and added credibility from Bishop Ron Ramsey and Pat Jones, Director of Healthy Church Ministries. These church multiplication goals fit nicely with a strategy that they have already laid out.

6. There is much fruit to point to regarding the LEAD Team concept. As of now, this fruit is located in the Baptist General Conference and some “first fruits” in the Michigan District of the Missionary Church.

A Status Report

We currently have seven church planting projects that have started in the last five years.

We have three plants in Michigan.
We have two plants in New York.
We have one plant in Ohio.
We have one plant in Maryland.

Two of these plants are in the pre-launch stage. They are:

Family Life Church (Maineville, Ohio)

The planter, Bryan Converse, is bi-vocational as of December 2006.
This church is currently being planted, and is in the pre-launch phase.
Using rented facilities.
The launch team is in formation.
This plant came out of the Center for Church Planting in Central Ohio and has also partnered with a local church in the area called Living Leaf Community Church.
Contact Bryan at realkingdomstuff@yahoo.com.

Imagine This Ministries LLC (Grand Ledge, Mich.)

The planter, Gordeon Kettel, is part-time now and will go fulltime in May 2007.
This church is currently being planted, and is in the pre-launch phase.
Using rented facilities.
The launch team has seven families already.
This plant is being helped by several regional churches.
Contact Gordon at gordon@imaginethisllc.com