For eighteen years Todd Wilson served as the co-founder and CEO of the Exponential Network, which has held the largest gatherings of Church Plant leaders on the planet in Orlando every spring. Over time Todd and the Exponential team became convinced that Disciple Making must be at the core of church planting. Todd is now leading Renew Movement, a church planting collaborative that, in partnership with Auxano, will be hosting two short pre-conferences at two of the Discipleship.org City Tours–one in Nashville and the other in Raleigh.
We are adding this pre-conference as a free add-on for all who are attending the Nashville or Raleigh City Tour events and it will introduce the Multipliers Journey, the new focus in church planting. I believe that this focus on Disciple Making in church planting is so important that I wanted everyone in our Discipleship.org community to know about it.
From taking your first baby steps in church planting to increasing your existing church planting activity by 10X, the Multipliers Journey aims to turn your good intentions for church planting into action that will accelerate your impact. This new process seeks to help churches more effectively and fruitfully engage church planting. These gatherings in Nashville and Raleigh will give you and your church or ministry, a front row seat to a preview of this new process that is about to launch. I invite you to read what Todd Wilson has shared about the Multipliers Journey process and ask you to consider being a part of the Pre-Conference and the Discipleship.org City Tour events!
Click here for details and Registration Link in Nashville
Click here for details and Registration Link in Raleigh
The Multipliers Journey process brings together the best multiplication content from seasoned practitioners and ministries like Exponential with the best-in-class clarity and planning tools from Auxano. This new integrated Multipliers Journey process is the culmination of several years of work.
Pre-COVID, studies showed that 35% of churches were declining (Level 1), 35% were plateauing (Level 2), and 30% were growing (Level 3). These numbers are not alarming and represent the bell curve of a natural lifecycle. Unfortunately, we’ve largely defined success as achieving and sustaining Level 3 growth regardless of our reproductive capacity.
Studies also show that less than 7% of churches are reproducing, and most are not seeing reproduction to the 3rd, 4th, etc. generations. The programmatic growth engines that have fueled the church growth movement are simply not enabling multiplication. This must change!
With 93% of churches not reproducing, we are losing ground. Lostness in our nation is increasing, and we are not on a path toward Gospel saturation. We desperately need a movement of churches committed to healthy reproduction that is capable of producing multiplication. We need churches willing to embrace new scorecards of success and to plant churches with disciple-making growth engines.
Amidst these realities, a growing number of church leaders are feeling the tension of working harder to see less results, and not liking the product their churches are producing. The systems that optimized the growth engines of the church growth movement are showing their limitations. The functional mission of the prevailing models aims to grow large sustainable churches, fueled by programmatic growth engines. This is leaving a growing number of leaders discontented with an angst that there must be something more.
This pre-conference gathering is designed to introduce leaders and churches to a multiplication journey where they will discover that exponential impact is possible, and that we can reverse the decline. No amount of programmatic growth can change our trajectory. We need a new season in which disciple-making is the functional core mission and growth engine of the church. We need to see a movement of disciples who make disciples, who plant churches that plant churches.
God has a plan for His people and His Church. His plan has never changed, we are to be fruitful and multiply filling the earth with His glory. That’s right–the answer is healthy reproduction, and we were created and designed to reproduce. Come and discover how you can start reproducing in a way that leads to multiplication.
Who are these gatherings designed for?
These gatherings are specifically designed for the leaders of:
- Churches interested in getting involved in church planting
- Church planting churches interested in turning up the gain on their activity and the stewardship of their investment
- Church planting networks and denominations that want practical tools for mobilizing an increasing number of their existing, affiliated churches into church planting
What can attendees expect?
The programming content will be the same in Nashville and Raleigh. An optional box lunch will be provided in Nashville for leaders who are staying for the Discipleship.org City Tour event and want time for networking with other attendees. Based on the timing of the gathering in Raleigh, lunch is not applicable, but a similar dedicated time of networking will be included for attendees.
There will be five, 30-minute sessions during the 3-hour gathering. Each 30-minute segment includes 20 minutes of content (see session descriptions below) presented by David Putman and Todd Wilson and 10 minutes of audience interaction. Scott Thomas will help MC the gathering in Nashville and Donnie Williams in Raleigh, including facilitating the Q&A and speaking into the presented content with their personal experience.
What content is built into the sessions?
Session 1 – From Scarcity to Abundance
In this session we will introduce the Level 5 multiplication framework and answer three important questions: What is reproduction (Level 4) and multiplication (Level 5), what keeps us from reproducing, and why must we pursue healthy reproduction that leads to multiplication. Attendees will be invited to embrace the journey of becoming a reproducing church that can multiply. Churches will be challenged to become Multipliers who are advocates, catalysts, and practitioners seeking to see multiplication become a normative measure of success in the church.
Session 2 – From Programs to Disciple Making
In this session we will introduce three core dimensions of multiplication and press into the disciple-making dimension. Our goal is to show that Biblical multiplication is impossible unless a culture of Jesus style relational disciple-making becomes the core mission AND growth engine of the church. We will highlight how a culture of mobilization, the second dimension of multiplication, must work in harmony with disciple making. We will use the upper room/lower room to illustrate what is happening in most of our churches.
Session 3 – From Confusion to Clarity
In this session we will talk about cultural alignment and how it produces clarity. In pursuing a strong reproducing culture, we will highlight the wins and behaviors of reproducing churches, and the need for new scorecards that encourage the right behaviors. This discussion will be anchored around three types of results: input, output, and impact results. Special attention will be given to the often-neglected output results by challenging each one to answer the question, “What kind of disciples are we making?”
Session 4 – From Growth to Saturation
In this session we will focus on vision and specifically a gospel situation vision. We will introduce tensions by asking questions like, what is our current functional endgame that drives our growth engine, strategy, and how we define success? Given that current endgame, we challenge attendees to consider what success looks like in 10 years from now? Does it move the needle toward gospel saturation and reducing lostness in our geography? How might our endgame need to change, and how would that inform our behavior right now?
Session 5 – From Everything to One Thing
In this session we will discover that less is more. We want to be a multiplier, but where do we begin, especially amidst all the confusion of our day? What does it really take to move forward in a new direction toward a new endgame, equipped with a new strategy? How do we do that without becoming overwhelmed amidst the realities of our current church operations? It starts with a clear vision. This session will introduce a vision planning tool and how to turn our good intentions for becoming healthy reproducing churches into reality via a solid and intentional plan.
Speakers
David Putman
David is the founder of Planting the Gospel, a non-profit ministry committed to catalyzing gospel-centered disciple-making movements. He also serves as a Senior Lead Navigator with Auxano (www.auxano.com) a category leader in vision clarity, where he lives out his mission of helping others rediscover the simplicity of Jesus and His Way.
Todd Wilson
Todd is the founder of Exponential, a non-profit ministry committed to seeing multiplication become a normative measure of success in the church. He also serves as team leader of Renew Movement (renew-movement.org) and Passion for Planting (church-planting.net), and strategic advisor to several national church planting ministries.
Sponsoring Hosts
These “Discovering Multipliers Journey” gatherings are being held in conjunction with Discipleship.org events in Nashville TN and Raleigh NC. Sponsoring hosts include Auxano (Auxano.com), Renew Movement (renew-movement.org), and Passion for Planting (church-planting.net). Scott Thomas (churchplantingpartners.com) and Donnie Williams (Devoted City Church) are serving as facilitators in Nashville and Raleigh, respectively.
Discipleship.org is offering this as a free pre-conference for City Tour attendees. Just use the code churchplant.
Click here for the Nashville Registration Link
Click here for the Raleigh Registration Link
Pre-Conference Locations:
Nashville TN
October 27, 2023
10:00 am to 1:00 pm (followed City Tour event at 2pm)
Harpeth Christian Church
1101 Gardner Drive
Franklin, TN, 37064
Raleigh NC
November 29, 2023 (afternoon before Discipleship.org City Tour event on November 30th)
1:00 pm to 4:00 pm (followed by an optional time of networking)
Devoted City Church (formerly LifePointe Church)
9500 Durant Road
Raleigh, NC, 27614