Church Planting and Multiplication

“The Church Planting track in the Doctor of Ministry program at Gordon-Conwell blends solid biblical and theological foundations with best practices from key church planting leaders and their networks. It equips church leaders to effectively recruit and train spiritual entrepreneurs to engage secular culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ, make disciples that will make disciples, and plant and multiply reproducing churches in a variety of contexts.”

-Dr. Thomas Herrick, track mentor

Church planting leaders have realized that they must move from addition to multiplication for the Church to flourish in the post-Christian West. The Spirit is moving networks and denominations to strategically organize their systems to be consistently self-replicating. Church planters today must have a biblical vision and strategy for saturating regions and people groups with Christ-centered, missional churches. This Doctor of Ministry will equip church planting network leaders, as well as church planters, to start and grow multiplying networks of healthy churches, informed by top thought leaders and practitioners in the US and globally.

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Informing

For the servants of Christ to keep pace by planting new churches in ways that will respond to the complexities of our times, they must be more theologically and culturally informed. Church planters of multiplying churches and networks need to be spiritual entrepreneurs, yet they also need to be far more: prayerful spiritual leaders, discerning cultural critics, and relevant biblical preachers and teachers.

This track will help provide the training that existing and prospective church planters & church planting network leaders need to birth healthy new congregations, culturally transforming yet faithful to orthodox faith and practice, and capable of sustaining themselves into the third and fourth generation of their daughter churches.

Engaging this field from coast to coast, thought leaders in the field will join us in this journey as guest presenters during each residency, including Dr. Mark Reynolds from City to City Church Multiplication Center, Todd Wilson, author and longtime CEO of the Exponential Network (now retired), and Larry Walkemeyer, planting pastor of Light & Life Church. Other speakers will also lend their voices to this conversation as we explore together the issues facing those who comprise our cohort.

Forming

As a Doctor of Ministry student, you will attend three two-week intensive residencies (seminars), one each year for three years. Following each of the first two residencies, you will complete a project related to the residency topic. After the third residency, you will complete a major thesis-project under the guidance of the directing faculty. These projects will form the foundation for each leader’s thesis-project, which will integrate all your studies and address the focus area you select.

The residencies consist of lectures, case studies, site visits, participant reports and individual consultations. The classroom sessions are collegial in style and stress learning within a community context. In preparation for each residency, you will read between 2,000 and 3,000 pages of assigned and collateral reading.

Transforming

To resource students through a biblically-grounded educational program taught by faculty who are committed to God’s Word and the application of principles of Scripture to the issues of contemporary culture.

• Students will be able to articulate a biblical framework for understanding God’s development of his church in the Old and New Testaments as the community of God’s people through whom he works to redeem his world.
• Students will be able to trace several biblical models of church planting in the history of the church within which God has worked for the advance of his kingdom.

To form in students a sound foundation of theological and biblical inquiry in their professional doctoral program’s specialized track that they are able to integrate into the life of Christian ministry.

• Students will be able to develop adequate tools for evaluating the biblical and theological assumptions undergirding various church planting and church growth methodologies.
• Students will be able to discern the general principles that are normally at work in the birth, growth, and life cycle of churches and to formulate a biblical and theological understanding of healthy churches.

To provide students with the skill set and understandings in a specialized area of ministry to such an extent that they can impact their congregation or community more powerfully for God.

• Students will be able to grow in awareness of the contemporary literature in church planting and growth, and in the role of churches in the multiplication of new churches.
• Students will be able to develop competence in assessing the environment and needs of the local congregation for more effective gospel witness in the larger community.

To create through the cohort model of the program a dimension of Christian community and spiritual nurturing so that students form strong friendships with one another and enter long-term relationships with the scholars who guide the learning experience.

• Students will be able to recognize that Christian ministry flows out of the character of believers and through their shared experiences together will want to grow in the knowledge of our life in Christ and to learn more of the beauty of His holiness.
• Students will be able to grow in their zeal for the glory of God as the motivation for evangelism and church planting and growth through shared worship together and shared witness together.
• Students will be able to develop an appreciation of the responsibility of the minister to be a peer support for fellow ministers by becoming a contributor to fellow students’ formation for ministry efforts.

To develop in students a deeper understanding of Christ’s lordship in all areas of life for the common good of the contemporary world.

• Students will be able to analyze the sociological and religious factors involved in church planting in the United States and in selected areas abroad.
• Students will be able to articulate their own understanding of the implications of the gospel for the living out of personal and corporate righteousness and social justice.

To cultivate within students through critical reflection and careful research through the residencies and projects an enriched Christian witness in the places of society they are called to serve.

• Students will be able to critique his/her ministry in light of biblical and theological perspectives on church planting and growth.
• Students will be able to apply principles of church planting and growth to his/her own ministry setting.
• Students will be able to implement and evaluate specific church planting and growth strategies within a local congregation.

To instill in students a refreshed view of their ministry as it relates to the proclamation of the Gospel among all people.

• Students will be able to articulate a vision for gospel proclamation through the local church to the larger community of the state, the nation, and the world.
• Students will be able to discern principles of church planting and growth that have played a key role in the spread of the gospel around the world.
• Students will be able to explore dynamics of cross-cultural church planting and growth through cross-cultural site visits.