There are barriers that you need to overcome in order to take your first steps towards multiplying your church.
In the previous article, we addressed the first four barriers to multiplication. In today’s article, we will address the next four barriers to multiplication:
5. Don’t See the Need for Multiplication
Before churches can multiply, they need to see it first. The problem is, many churches don’t see the need for multiplication. They assume that multiplication is not for them. Their reasoning is predicated on the assumption that other churches will multiply. While they may understand the vision behind multiplication, they just don’t have a personal conviction to multiply.
We believe every church should not only embrace a vision of multiplication, but personally engage in multiplication.
Leaders do need to assume that even some of the most committed Christians will not have a pre-existing favorable disposition towards multiplication, and will see multiplication as the church’s responsibility and not theirs. This is why it’s vital to share the vision for multiplication, consistently, clearly, and in different forms and fashions each time.
We saw this clearly in our research. You can click here to get the State of Church Planting Research Report that this is based upon.
Churches who regularly communicated a commitment to multiplication were more likely to multiply within their first five years than those who didn’t.
Until your church sees multiplication as a personal conviction that they should embrace and enact, you will be facing an uphill battle. So work on communicating Jesus’ commitment to multiplication to the entire congregation through different means, like vision talks, sermon illustrations, state of the union addresses, print pieces, stories, and video. And if you’re worried about sounding like a broken record, don’t be. After all, “vision leaks.”
6. Absence of a Change Management Strategy
Your efforts to multiply and plant a daughter church will never launch off the ground without a vision for multiplication. However, unless you have a clear change management strategy, your efforts will always stall mid-way. This change management strategy has to address each level of leadership in your church and every venue for public communication. [Read more…] about Lack of Awareness, Bad Change Management, and More Things That Prevent Church Multiplication