Focus on Reproduction, Mentor's Guide, MG12

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F O C U S O N R E P R O D U C T I O N

The Empowerment phase of effective church planting is the last of the three, with Evangelism and Equipping being the first two. This phase also covers the final letter “T” in the PLANT acrostic: Prepare, Launch, Assemble, Nurture, Transition. The heart and soul of these processes and activities concern our ability to raise up a qualified core of commissioned leaders of proven character who possess the competence to lead the community which God has called them to. Raising up godly leaders who faithfully and responsibly shepherd and protect the Church is the single greatest responsibility of effective urban church planters. Without gifted leaders, urban churches will be subject to division, heresy, and stagnation. The nature of empowerment involves our ability to enable urban churches to grow toward independence, to associate with other churches for fellowship and service, and to reproduce themselves in kingdom-oriented witness and ministry. Our overall goal is that the churches may become a self-governing, self-supporting, and self-reproducing church. The leaders who can effectively lead emerging urban churches must be commissioned, i.e., persons of a distinctly recognized call, of character , i.e., persons of proven experience; of competence , i.e., persons of gifting and skill, and persons of community, i.e., persons committed to serve and sacrifice on behalf of the members of the body. A newly planted urban church is empowered for reproduction when a faithful group of converted, gathered, and maturing disciples of Jesus function together in worship and fellowship, and is governed by its own pastors and leaders under its own processes. Such a fellowship no longer functions in dependence upon the missionaries and workers who help to found it, and it encourages and spawns unique, burden-driven, gift-oriented ministries carried out by its members. An empowered church generates its own resources and income for operations, ministry and mission, and faithfully stewards its resources and facilities with kingdom priorities in mind. Finally, an empowered church is focused on reproducing itself, in service to the Lord and advance of the Kingdom in mission. If you are interested in pursuing some of the ideas of Planting Urban Churches: Reaping , you might want to give these books a try: Feeney, James H. Church Planting by the Team Method . Anchorage: Abbott Loop Christian Center, 1988. Garrison, David. Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World . Midlothian, VA: WIGTake Resources, 2004.

Restatement of the Lesson’s Thesis

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Resources and Bibliographies