Further Structures that are Strictures and Hinder Multiplication

In the previous blog, I gave you four ways that some structures can hinder rapid mobilization. Here are four more to think through.

Fifth, what we might call a “baggage-laden concept” of what constitutes a New Testament Church and its structures can hinder spontaneity. This has been addressed by me in a study where I deal with “What is a Church? What is my Goal?—Ch 1, 2, & 3” available by request by contacting me at my e-mail bobvajko@gmail.com If we add our own cultural baggage as to what a church is to be, then we will be hindered in our multiplication of churches.

In his book Starting a New Church, Ralph Moore, founder of the Hope Chapel Movement which has planted some 200 new churches explains: ““The North American church paradigm seems wired against the rapid multiplication of churches. At its core are three major impediments to the rapid multiplication of the church. Each roadblock is a useful tool, yet each comes with a price tag that is often out of reach or difficult to pay. The costs that stand in our way include the following:
1. Required seminary training for pastors.
2. A dedicated building for church services.
3. Full-time remuneration for pastors.” (Moore 2002, 102)
Note that in China they are keeping the churches simple and that leads to true multiplication. The more one can keep the concept of church and churches in a denomination rooted to biblical norms, the more we will see structures that will result in biblical growth and multiplication.

Sixth, a non-contextualized concept of church planting can be a structure than hinders growth and multiplication. We think that we can import a model which may work well in one culture forgetting the importance of context. This does not mean compromising the basic principles of Scripture but it does mean being flexible in all the areas that are not clearly spelled out in Scripture. The worst thing that one can do is to copy a model from another country or even another area of the country in which one is working without contextualizing.

Seventh, the concept of planting one church and majoring upon it is a structure that is non biblical.This is one structure that is really deadly to church planting and multiplication. It usually involves building one church and not seeing the importance of churches giving birth to new churches. This one-church model forgets the organic nature of the Church which is that it is a “living church” that grows and multiplies organically and not mechanically. Pastors and missionaries struggle with the paradigm of multiplication by thinking (and sometimes stating), “I have such a hard time getting one church planted that I do not have the energy or the vision to see regional church multiplication.” However, this betrays a wrong vision of what God wants to do and means that the DNA of a given church does not have the “multiplication” factor built in. So in spite of the struggle to see “one church” born and growing, we must add the further “struggle” to see that church giving birth and thus multiplying itself.

Eighth, one of the modern hindrances to church planting in a spontaneous way is a wrong mega-church approach that leads to sterility. This is linked to the “one church” mentality. Large churches are not wrong but what is wrong is the idea that we are to build one large church rather than multiply ourselves.
Some “mega-churches” have been fantastic at planting new churches and so it is not the “mega-church” concept that is wrong. What is wrong is the “mega-church” model that does not lead to some kind of daughter church multiplication. “Big churches” need to add to their paradigm the vision of “big churches that plant branch churches.”