Dave Ferguson is the founding pastor of Community Christian Church, a multi-expression missional community. Ferguson highlighted the importance of whole-person health. Every day, he assesses his relational, physical, spiritual, and mental health and suggests we practice the same. It is impossible for an unhealthy leader to produce healthy followers. However, healthy leaders will create a lasting impact on the lives of others. Ferguson made the point that every Christ follower is to be a disciple and multiplier for the Kingdom. I appreciated his definition of disciple as “someone who hears from God, then does what God told him to do.” I have never heard the term defined so simply and yet thoroughly. Further, a multiplier is “a healthy disciple-making leader who champions reproduction.” We multiply what we are and what we do. He emphasized that disciple-making happens through relationships. As you invest in people one-on-one or in small groups, they learn to invest in others. And eventually you will see your fruit growing on someone else’s trees. Most importantly, church multiplication is possible in any church, through any disciple, and in every context. We don’t need to have all the answers, a master’s degree, or a large budget; we just need to make ourselves available to God. We don’t even need to be good at math; God will do the multiplying for us. Bishop Mark Webb thanked Ferguson for his message, then added that a multiplying culture is so intertwined with the Great Lakes Annual Conference and Global Methodist Church that he has told churches, “If your church isn’t willing to MULTIPLY disciples and MULTIPLY churches, the Global Methodist Church probably isn’t for you.”
During the Wednesday evening worship session, Bishop Webb challenged conference attendees to move from focusing on what we don’t have to offering what we already have to Jesus. “The Kingdom of God advances not through abundance, but through our surrendered trust in the provision of God,” Webb said. “The concept of multiplication is nearly impossible when we remain more concerned about keeping our doors open and more concerned about keeping people with us rather than focusing how to make disciples and the sending those disciples to make more disciples.” John 6:1-15 recounts a multiplication story for the ages. When faced with feeding a large crowd and his disciples in a panic about lack of resources, Jesus already knew what he was going to do. After the vast crowd sat down, Jesus took what they had, gave thanks, he broke the bread and fish into pieces and instructed the disciples to distribute to those who were seated as much as they wanted. The scriptures go on….so the disciples filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. Webb enthusiastically reminded the assembled group; there was more left over than when they started. “The miracle began the moment the problem was surrendered,” he said. Multiplication happens when we move from focusing on what we lack and move to offering Jesus what we have and surrendering what we have to him. The same Jesus who fed 5,000 is still saving, still feeding and multiplying today. He is asking us to believe again, dream again and trust him.
Rev. Dr. Scott Pattison spoke Wednesday morning during opening worship, encouraging the assembled members to live into our Great Lakes Annual Conference Culture Statement. He began by sharing where we came from and where we are now. In four years, the Great Lakes Annual Conference grew from humble beginnings with 4 churches and 6 pastors in Indiana to 313 churches across four states and 532 clergy. He reminded us to continue our growth; it will be necessary to live in a culture of experiments and failures. It requires a vision of churches as life-saving stations. Further, Pattison emphasized the need for our churches to be multiplying churches. He says, “Our primary job is to try to see where and how God has been working and to partner with him in bringing people to redemption in Jesus.” In the past, our priorities have been to fill pews and to keep our doors open. But that is not the commission we were given by Christ. As a young movement, the Global Methodist Church can change how we’ve done things in the past and to see a future filled with multiplying congregations and a healthy culture. In this new era of Methodism, Pattison promised accountability in shared ministry, asking us to watch over one another in love and work hard at building trust in our personal and professional relationships. By developing a culture of multiplication in the local church, the Great Lakes Annual Conference will continue to grow even faster than it has over the last four years and will keep its focus on living in God’s Kingdom through the Local Church.
