Becoming A Church Multiplier
My journey as a church multiplier began with a powerful and specific word from the Lord in January 2017. I was reading Luke 5 and verses 6-7 apprehended me, “They caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.”
In this chapter the disciples had been fishing all night and along comes Jesus and he tells them to go out again and cast their nets into the deep water. In a very personal and profound way Jesus began to speak to me in great detail about the future of Hope Church (which at that time was a solo campus of 300 people in La Grange). I felt like Jesus was right there with me as the Head of his church and he told me:
· Keep fishing for souls! Don’t get tired! Don’t give up!
· Get ready, Hope Church will soon add another boat (church).
· Look for the partnerships I will bring to you.
A few weeks later I was invited to walk through a run-down church building on Archer Avenue in Chicago. It was in rough shape with serious water issues and mold in the lower level. On the upper level, the ceiling was falling down in pieces in the sanctuary. It was quite a sorry sight! As I was walking through this building in great disrepair I heard the voice I’ve come to know so well, “Hal, can these bones live?” I laughed out loud and thought, “Pity the fool who has to renovate this building!”
When I got home and told my wife, Dawn, about my adventure in the decrepit Chicago church building she said, “Oh, take me to see it!” When I walked through that building with Dawn a few days later I heard that trusted voice again, asking the same question, “Hal, can these bones live?” I immediately thought, “This place needs a resurrection!” Then I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Hal, this is the other boat I’ve been telling you about.” Dawn brought a number of contractors through the building and several of them agreed to do the work pro bono!
I shared this “opportunity” with our church board and they made the unanimous commitment to renovate that building and we began planning to launch our second campus to be called Hope Midway. Soon after that, a wonderful bilingual congregation asked to join us and we added them to our launch plans as Iglesia Hope. While all this was transpiring, a young couple from our church received approval to plant Impact Church in Maywood, IL. In God’s good pleasure all three of the new campuses were launched on the same day, October 1, 2017. We had multiplied! We were now the “parent” church of three new glorious congregations!
Presently, we are completely renovating the interior of a church building in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago and we plan to launch Hope Pilsen later in 2020. We are now one church in three locations with four congregations and we have over 600 people in the Hope Church family! We have multiplied! We are putting a beautiful commercial kitchen in the Pilsen church building and plan to launch at least two Dinner Churches in Chicago in 2021. We’re humbled and honored that Jesus has called us to be a multiplying church. In the interest of full disclosure, all of this is very challenging to me personally. I have learned so many lessons about delegation, team-building, trust, conflict resolution, culture-building, stewardship and MANY more areas!
Our entire church across all of our campuses has also learned many important truths about church multiplication these past three years. First and foremost, we learned that church multiplication is all about fishing for souls. It’s all about resurrection life! It’s all about partnership! We believe we have a bright future as a multiplying church!
