John Kapteyn recently attended our denominations Church Multiplication Team meeting in Chicago. He believes that the Canadian churches need to be more aware of what this movement is and hopes we will communicate this more in the future within our website. God has already been using Church Multiplication to bring many to faith and He wants to use us all for that purpose.
Here is a brief description of part of the strategy Church Multiplication and how it can impact our churches (from RC is growing! Within the RCA, new church start pastors are banding together and sharing a common dream: to see churches multiply, to reach the "fields...ripe for harvesting" (John 4:35) with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The pastors' vision includes a four-part strategy for multiplying churches and leaders in order to incite a movement:

1a. Evaluate People
Church planters have unique gifts, abilities, and skills. Assessing potential church planters through the RCA's Gallup Survey and the follow-up Ridley Assessment helps determine these people's giftedness and maximize their ministries.

The evaluation process has proven itself valuable in making sure church planters and planting opportunities are linked. It helps in discovering God's hand in the life of a planter and the needs of a particular ministry area or culture.

If you are interested in starting a new church or becoming part of a church planting team, take the Starter Survey. Send an email request to sketcham@rca.org and we'll send you this tool to help you evaluate your part in church multiplication.

1b. Evaluate Places
We'll help you discern and evaluate sites, using prayer, experience, observation, and demographic information. We will join our efforts to yours to determine God's leading in locating potential new church start opportunities and new mission fields.
2. Equip
Every church planter needs proper training to be effective in ministry. Through partnership with the Church Multiplication Training Center, future new church start pastors attend Church Planter's Boot Camp--a week of intensive training that significantly and positively impacts the church planting process. It provides a church planter with biblical principles and action plans that can be strategically applied in the community where a project is focused.

3. Empower
The apostle Paul and young John Mark had Barnabas to coach them in the initial steps of their ministries. A commitment to empower each church planter with a coach is part of the RCA church multiplication strategy, too. These coaches have been through the planting process themselves and are equipped to provide the support and guidance a planter requires in the early years of a church's development.

In addition, an annual leadership training event demonstrates how a network with other planters can provide support and encouragement. The event is designed to allow church planters to interact and to equip them for future new church development.

4. Expand
No longer will we rely on church additions to keep up with the growing demands of reaching the unchurched. The strategic vision for church multiplication in the RCA includes developing "parent church" networks of existing churches that will plant new congregations in the future. Healthy churches reproduce and multiply.

Ours is a vision not only to plant new RCA churches but to plant new churches that commit to plant new churches themselves, and so on, ever expanding the kingdom of God