Key: Believe

BELIEVE in the Church’s potential to reproduce and cover the earth

Stephanas remembered what Jesus told His disciples: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”[1] He imagined what churches might look like as the Holy Spirit multiplied them from culture to culture.

Stephanas would not have envisioned planting only one single, individual, isolated church. His goal was to plant the only kinds of churches he was familiar with: simple ones which reproduce from house to house into daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter churches—what we call today, a Church Planting Movement (CPM).

Jesus often used seeds to illustrate the reproductive power of the Kingdom of God. Stephanas considered the wheat growing in the fields near his home. A church is like a grain of wheat, after it is planted, it grows and reproduces. When planted, one grain of wheat usually produces about 25 grains. He figured out the potential for multiplication.

Assuming two plantings per year, one grain of wheat could produce–

[Year 1] First season: 1 grain X 25 = 25

Second season: 25 X 25 = 625

[Year 2] First season: 625 X 25 = 15,625

Second season: 15,625 X 25 = 390,625.

[Year 3] First season: 390,625 X 25 = 9,765,625

Second season: 9,765,625 X 25 = 244,140,625 –more than enough wheat      to feed the whole Roman Empire

[A few more years] the entire world full of wheat!

Jesus told a parable of the Growing Seed: “This is what the Kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”[2] Stephanas realized:

• God uses people to scatter the seed.
• The seed contains life, growth and reproductive power.
• Once the seed is planted, the farmer rested, trusting in God to do His part.
• This same power to reproduce is within the church – it is like a living organism!
• We each have our part to play, but it is God who brings the fruit. We cannot force growth and multiplication. In one of Paul’s letters he wrote, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.”[3]

Stephanas thought to himself, “Ah, how wonderful to see churches multiplying across the whole earth. It is possible! In fact it will happen. The Hebrew Prophet Habakkuk declared, ‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’” [4]

[2] Mark 4:26-29

[3] I Corinthians 3:6

[4] Habakkuk 2:14