Bill Easums Observations

This week I’ve been working with a charismatic movement of some 300 churches that were planted out of Ghana (Action Chapel International) led by Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams. They had pulled together several of their key pastors from over the world to work out a structure to allow them to explode throughout the world. The presently have churches in Ghana, Netherlands, U.S., London, Italy, Germany, Benin, Nigeria, Cdlvoire, Sierra Leone and Liberia and are opening churches in Asia and the Middle East.  Their goal is 150 new churches in 2009.

They are functioning like a multi site church- one church in many locations. Like many movements that take off explosively they have no way of holding all of the leaders accountable financially and missionally. Getting  hole or the  financial is the easy part- you just start tracking and holding each church accountable for a certain amount coming back into the movement. Getting hold of the missional is more difficult.

In the mind of the Archbishop, the movement exists to plant churches throughout the world. This means that each church has to be willing to assist in the planting of churches, both with money and with planters.

The problem is this mission has never been intentionally articulated and recast on a regular basis. It has been a practice but not a clearly defined mandate that could hold all the churches accountable.

So we had to nail down the vision of the movement- to make Christ known throughout the world through the multiplication of Action Chapel International Churches. Once that was done I had to say, from hence forth all churches that remain in this movement must be on board with financially and missionally supporting the vision. 

Movements have to have two things to survive – trust in the founder and team players throughout the movement.  There can be no deviation on the vision. They exist to plant churches throughout the world and everyone must commit to that vision.

The buy in during the second day was incredible. The Archbishop had embedded his church planting gene in his lieutenants. Now they are ready to move forward.

I’ve been thinking and writing about movements now for several years beginning with my book Unfreezing Moves. Lately I’ve worked on a paper titled The Anatomy of a Movement. History hasn’t been kind to movements. The only way they survive is if the founder leaves a fluid system in place that carries on his or her spirit and raises up an Elisha who is as charismatic as he or she is.

I have to say I’m having a ball working with this group and hope to have more opportunities to work with them and to learn from them. They are much different from me but they are on the same mission I’m on- to make Jesus known throughout the world.

I have one more day with the group and then I’m home for a three week vacation. I  normally don’t work in the summer, but this summer has offered too many rare opportunities to turn down.

Bill Easum
www.easumbandy.com

I’m not prone to using many superlatives when reviewing a book. But in the case of The Multiplying Church by Bob Roberts of Northwood Church. I reached into my bag of superlatives for one big enough to describe the importance of this book and I couldn’t find one.  I tried them all and they all came up short. This simply is perhaps the most important book written for our time other than the Bible.  Roberts has given us a must read.What I like most about the book is that it transcends all planting or institutional models and incorporates the best of the attractional and incarnational conversations and nails the purpose of the church- not to talk about God, but Jesus!Way to go Bob. The Kingdom is much richer thanks to you.

I just returned from speaking at the Exponential Conference on Reproducing ministries in Orlando.  I have to say it was one of the most stimulating events Ive been to in a long time.

It was like asking how do we plant 100,000 churches over the next ten years? How can that be done? The answer? Every church become a parenting church of a church plant that is going to plant another church that is going to plant another church and so on.

Tim Keller was one of the highlights for me. His message was on target- we need to refocus our attention on Jesus and his full message.

Dave Ferguson was another highlight. He said,

Three keys

• The freedom to say no- this means you have a crystal clear vision of what God wants you to do
• Go! Instead of come. We don’t belong to a church. We aren’t members of a specific church. We are people of the Way, basking in the warm of God’s kingdom of love. That means that every staff person needs to be planning on where he or she is going to go to plant a church.
• No ego. We have to quit squabbling over our pity opinions of tastes.  When we understand grace, there is no place for ego. We can’t care who gets the credit.

Four shifts for reproducing churches to emerge as a movement

• Shift from church growth to missional movement – you can’t build buildings fast enough; values the new, the lost, the edge, the sent rather than the old, the saved, the center, staying
• Shfit from ministry managers to spiritual entrepnuers move people up from the ranks
• Staff shift from reactive to proactive – when you are ready (when you are spiritually ready) you reproduce even if you don’t need the space. Leader readiness -
• From addition to multiplication.