Are You Planting a Multiplying Church?

Though we may not necessarily think about it, our experiences with the individuals in the various contexts of our lives—home, church, community activities, etc.—cause us to naturally group people into profiles. For example, after one meeting, a small group leader knows who the “extra grace required” (EGR) people are in the group, the ones who dominate the conversation. Within the first week of school, teachers know who the overachiever students are. And supervisors quickly learn who to turn to on their team when something vitally important needs to be finished with excellence.

Reputations are built on demonstrated behaviors and results. In each of the above examples, we could observe the behaviors of a specific group and then create profiles based on their behaviors. In other words, we could study the characteristics of “extra grace required” people and then define a profile for that type of person based on their demonstrated behaviors. Anyone in a small group could read that profile and say, “Sure enough, Brian was an EGR in the group I was in last year!”

In the same way, we can apply this idea to churches to look at distinct behavioral types that help us assess where they are with becoming a multiplying church. Specific behaviors describe five different levels of multiplication in churches. We have defined these as Level 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 multiplying churches. Regardless of church size, growth rate (positive or negative) or behavioral type, all churches will exhibit behaviors from all five levels; however, we can begin to define a primary level and create profiles for each of the five behavioral types. Read more