Multiply Vineyard’s vision is to extend the kingdom of God by helping our local churches fulfill their God-given call to multiply, to reproduce, and to plant new churches. We want to work alongside existing Vineyard churches to help facilitate multiplication of new Vineyard churches who will in turn transform their local communities and go on to plant more churches.
For a number of years, missiologists have been laboring to refocus the Church toward viewing missional theology as applicable in both international and domestic contexts. This means that missions is not just what we do in Africa or Asia or South America. All followers of Jesus are called to be a part of God’s mission, making disciples who make disciples who make disciples! Following the example of Jesus, we are empowered to do the work of the kingdom and join God’s mission by localizing ourselves into communities. As Ed Stetzer has said:
“Missional is the posture — the way in church we approach people in culture — but incarnational describes what’s actually happening. Just as Christ came to live among us, we dwell with the people around us.”
But what is a church planting partnership?
A church planting partnership consists of churches working together to accomplish what none of them could do alone. Our partnerships provide a much needed relationship for pastors and churches to work together and pool their resources in order to focus on planting churches. These pastors/churches agree to join together to pursue planting churches wherever God has called them to. As these pastors/churches share their commitment to the cause and make sacrifices together, they accomplish together what they couldn’t do by themselves! This, of course, allows churches of sizes to band together and be a part of church planting!
In Luke 10, Jesus sent his disciples out to proclaim and demonstrate the kingdom of God. Did you notice that he didn’t send them out as individuals but as teams? The New Testament is ripe with examples of disciple-making teams. We read of Paul traveling with Barnabas and Timothy and Luke and John Mark and they are focused on making disciples, which form into churches. Churches working together to plant churches are what our partnerships are all about! Partnerships are all about providing a context for the Holy Spirit to unite churches together for the glory of God and the good of all people.
The Multiply Vineyard Partnerships
We currently have four active and functioning partnerships:
- La Viña – Homero Garcia
- New York City – Mike Turrigiano, Tad Blackburn
- Denver Metro – Jay Pathak
- Small Town USA – Joel Seymour, Ross Nelson, & Luke Geraty
Together, along with the people living in the target areas, these partnerships develop a strategic plan and carry out their vision of planting in the city or area or people group that they are focused on. These partnerships make these domestic, cross-cultural and trans-local missions available to churches of all sizes because the total burden does not fall on one church! In addition, new opportunities for fellowship and friendships are available among the partners. As the African proverb says:
“If you want to go fast—go alone. If you want to go far—go together.”
We believe that every single Vineyard church can be a parent of new churches as well as a partner—participating with a group of churches that voluntarily come together and choose a particular target area to focus in. No church is expected to do it alone!
So what are you waiting for? Why not contact one of our partnerships and get started working with other churches to plant churches? We’d love to help you through that process!
