STUNTING MULTIPLICATION
In my years of planting and leading MCs, I’ve found that MCs struggle to multiply, or sometimes they don’t want to multiply at all. Sometimes they aren’t trained properly and don’t know any better, and sometimes they would rather stay the same group of people year after year without adding anyone new. There are various other reasons why they may not multiply, but after talking with leaders, it’s not long before I can understand why they aren’t multiplying. In this article, we will look at some of the most popular mistakes I’ve seen that keep MCs stagnant.
Before we continue, please know this: I am not forgetting the work of the Spirit or the plans of God. Let’s be honest, God has used a burning bush and a talking donkey, so if he wants something to happen, he’ll make it so. Instead, I am writing this purely from a planning and strategic understanding of leading MCs. No one will multiply without God’s Spirit empowering and leading that multiplication, but multiplication also takes hard work and intentional direction.
Here are some ways to ensure that your MC never multiplies. If you follow these simple steps, you’ll ensure yourself a long life of hanging out with the same people, studying the same things, and never having to actually live them out or teach them to others.
1. NEVER ASK ANYONE TO STEP UP AND LEAD
One of the best ways to ensure that you don’t multiply is to assume the role of end-all leader for your group. Make sure the buck always stops with you. The last thing you want to do is to try and empower anyone for leadership. They should never think that they could actually lead a community on mission someday. So, when you go to trainings, when you are thinking through the next steps for the MC, when you are living your life of discipleship during the week, never invite anyone from the group into your life. Who knows? They might learn from you, apply it on their own life, and get the idea that they could lead too.
2. DON’T HAVE A UNIFIED CONTEXT FOR MISSION
The mission is to make disciples, just make sure that your MC doesn’t have a unified context of who you are trying to reach. Stay scattered. Have people do their own thing, then just come back and talk about how things are going. The last thing you want to see is everyone being unified for the sake of mission, because that will only lead to a ton of gospel conversations, tons of idols being exposed in each other’s lives, and the church looking like a body to the outside world. The more unified you are in mission the more people that would attract, and that only leads to one thing: multiplication. Imagine if the world saw a group of people who gave up time, money, and comfort for the sake of a unified goal!
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