Multiplier Churches

Making the PAC Church Model Work

Jeff Leake

• Publisher: Gospel Publishing House
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781607315186
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

"Could a revival of church growth happen in the United States? Could we see a wave of church planting, campuses, and leadership reproduction? Is it possible to do more in the future than what has been dreamed of in the past? I believe that it is."—Jeff Leake The journey of planting a church is exciting and rewarding, but it involves more than simply charting a course to launch. In Multiplier Churches, Jeff Leake opens the door to a world of options available to pastors and churches for growing and reproducing. Drawing on his experience in implementing these steps, he proposes a shift in thinking to create a climate for a church-planting movement. The Assemblies of God makes church multiplication potential even more possible through parent affiliated churches, or PAC for short. To find out more about church planting, visit www.churchmultiplication.net.

Chapter One

The Story of
a Multiplier Church

My story begins back in 1965. I was only six months old at the time, but I was born into the family of a church planting pastor. My father and mother had recently moved from the tiny country town of Moss Grove, Pennsylvania, to a suburb of Pittsburgh to replant a church that had dwindled down to just four people.

On our first Sunday there, we were a total of seven in this brand-new congregation (and yes, they counted me!). The only way my father survived was because of the generosity of the local presbyter/pastor, Elmer Schink. Rev. Schink was a bivocational pastor himself. But he wanted to see new churches planted so badly that he not only supported his own family out of his job with the steel industry, he also supported my family as well.

For the first two years of his ministry at Monroeville Assembly of God, my father received a check for twenty-five dollars a week as his salary, directly from Pastor Schink. There is no way around the fact that this local church pastor and presbyter was the difference-maker in helping this new church get relaunched.

THREE THINGS PRESENT

What gave my parents an extra push as they started this new church?

1.Faith: An older pastor, with more experience and an effective ministry believed in them and expressed that faith again and again.

2.Finances: That same leader was willing to make a substantial and even sacrificial investment in this church-planting vision.

3.Freedom: There was an expressed desire to see new churches planted in the same city. There was no territorialism or protectionistic turf orientation. Rather, there was a release to have vision and dream.

Because of Pastor Schink’s mind-set and support, Monroeville Assembly of God, replanted in 1965, became one of the largest churches in the Pennsylvania-Delaware District. Several other churches were planted out of that church. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were given to missions. And most significant to me personally, this church became the place where I found Christ and grew up in my faith.

MY CALLING INTO MINISTRY

Sometime in the late 1970s, I gave my life to Christ and shortly after that I felt called into the ministry. In 1986, I graduated from Central Bible College with a BA in Bible and then in 1987, I finished my MA in missiology from the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary.

During my training, I was taught all about the explosive growth of the Assemblies of God missions movement. During these courses, my professors explained to me the key role that church planting was playing in the advancement of the kingdom of God around the world. Inwardly, I felt a burning passion to be a part of a movement of church plants to reach a region and a nation for Christ.

At that time, I thought my missionary calling would be fulfilled by living in Latin America or Africa. What I never dreamed was that it would start right in the city where I grew up. But after my education, I took a position on staff at Allison Park Church. Three years into my tenure there, my boss resigned to take a church in California and through a succession of events, I was selected, at a very young age, to be the lead pastor of this great church.

All that was on my mind after becoming the pastor was survival! I was not certain that I was up to the task, but I did not want the church to die or diminish on my watch.

My hope was for growth in every way, but especially, I wanted the church to grow in number and to somehow prove to myself and to everyone else that I could do this job.

Honestly, planting churches out of my church was not on my radar screen at all during those first few years. In fact, any thought of that seemed to be counterproductive to my goal to grow in number. Why would I want to send anyone away? Other churches were the competition, right? I was trying to keep people from leaving and trying to make them want to stay.

THE SHIFT TOWARD KINGDOM THINKING

It was in 1996, after five years of being the lead pastor of Allison Park Church, that I personally stumbled into the power of applying a kingdom mind-set in my own city. At that time, the church that I was pastoring was growing. We were in multiple services and were outgrowing both the auditorium and the parking lot. I was thrilled at the growth but frustrated at the lack of solutions for our problems.

We were searching for property to buy, so we could build a new building to house the growth and continue to add to our numbers as a church. In the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh where the church is located, there are beautiful rolling hills, rivers, and bridges, but very few flat parcels of property upon which a large church can be built.

It was during this season that God spoke to me. “I understand you have a problem! You have been telling Me all about it,” I felt the Holy Spirit whisper to me. “Have you considered that I have problems too?”

My inner response was, “What problems? What problems could the God who owns everything truly have? He has no limits on His power and no lack in His understanding. So what problems could God have that I could do anything about?”

He again whispered to me to answer my inner thoughts, “My problem is that you live in a city that needs to be reached.” Many of the towns along the rivers of Pittsburgh had been abandoned after the closing of the steel industry. These towns used to have thriving churches within them. Now they are just filled with problems.

“If I solve your problem and give you more property so you can build, and if your church grows into the thousands, that still will not solve My problem. There will still be many towns and communities in your area that lack a life-giving church.”

So the challenge for me was this: Put God’s problem first!

Bas...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Story of a Multiplier Church
• Chapter Two: What Exactly Is a PAC Church?
• Chapter Three: Current Opportunities and Trends
• Chapter Four: Navigating through Important Relationships
• Chapter Five: Questions and Answers
• Afterword