THE BEST ACTION ON THE MINISTRY FEILD IS AT SHORT STOP!!

This past summer, at the height of baseball season, Bener Agtarap and I created a metaphor for church multiplication using a baseball diamond. Bener had sent me to Manila earlier in the year to study the habits and patterns of ministry by which United Methodist churches had multiplied so rapidly.   In the Philippines, new congregations begin as mission stations (first base), then the become faith communities with Bible study (second base), then they become worshiping communities (third base), then fully established churches who are fully invested in the mission of the denomination (home base). 

 In American Christianity, we often want to put several runs on the board before we would feel 'strong enough' to plant another church and risk losing key members and their donations from the mother church. The years can become decades, as we continually find one reason after another for keeping our kingdom investment in one basket, as we build facilities, phases one, two and three, add staff, and so forth.

In Manila the new United Methodist faith communities do not even wait until they get to third base before they begin investing energy in another baseball field nearby. Before they begin worship - somewhere around short stop - they are expected to begin working another field as a mission station. Thus multiplication is woven into the fabric of life. The church exists for mission. Mission first.

In the United States, with all our talk about the Missional Church, some of our new faith communities are actually behaving missionally - acting like Filipinos - and establishing mission stations in a new field before launching weekly worship in their first ministry zone.

Two notable examples:

1. The Stand in Prince George County, Virginia (near Petersburg) began its ministry in 2010 by establishing a Christian preschool (mission station - first base), and then growing a faith community with regular Bible study and occasional worship from this beginning (second base). In a few months they will launch weekly worship (third base) most likely around Christmas time. However, this past summer, they began a ministry to at-risk children in a low income neighborhood/trailer park - a ministry that is not directly related to the progress they are making toward weekly worship launch. The new mission station, birthed before they launched worship at their main site, reaches into a different kind of population - folks that won't likely be showing up for worship in phase one. Thus they will have launched two very different, but powerful ministries to children prior to launching weekly worship anywhere. By 1990s church planting time-lines, it is odd. But in the world of the multiplying church, it makes total sense. Gina Anderson-Cloud is pastor.    
2. After Hours in Denver was officially commissioned in summer 2011 as a new United Methodist church-development project and Jerry Herships was appointed as pastor. Four days a week, the launch team and their friends are out in the park across from the Colorado State capitol building offering sack lunches, water bottles, socks and Holy Communion (approaching second base already!) to people who are homeless or living on the edge.   They also have begun monthly worship services on a march toward a worship launch sometime in 2012. 64 people showed up for their second monthly service in August, held in a private room of a downtown Irish Pub. The first part of the service featured an assembly line making lunches for ministry in the park the following day. Few of the folks in the park are going to show up at the pub for worship. They will not help Jerry find 'critical mass' in order to worship more often in 2012. But from a missional perspective, it all makes good sense. Not only have they already multiplied to a 'two ministry site' model in their first summer, but the authenticity of concern for poor folks is what drives many of the other folks to get involved.

Think about the ministries that you are birthing. Look at the stretch between second and third, and ask the apostolic question that Gina and Jerry asked: "Is there a way to multiply this thing before it is fully established?"   You might be surprised at the possibilities when you step back to look more closely.