By Stu Streeter
VP of Church Multiplication and Ministry Advancement
In recent years, I have watched a number of NAB multiplication efforts propose for their church a simple rule of life, if you will: Be with Jesus – Become like Jesus – Do the Things Jesus Did.
Hearing this makes my heart leap like Mary’s must have when she heard what the Spirit was incubating in her womb, and I can only imagine the hope she had in those moments for all that God was up to in the world through her.
For the better part of fifteen years, God has been incubating a movement of mission, formation, and multiplication in us as the NAB, a simple response to who God is and what he is doing to redeem all creation.
When we think about multiplication in the NAB family, we always start with the person we are becoming in Christ. Whether your church is seeking to join God on mission to multiply a new church, a new campus, or a new ministry, or revitalizing any of the prior that have lost their mission, we always start with the person we are becoming in Christ. Because, ultimately, we as leaders in multiplication replicate what we are actually becoming.
The centerpiece article of this issue from Cam Roxburgh explores hope: what it is, and what it is not. All too often in the Kingdom, we have settled for wishful thinking or merely getting our way and, in so doing, missed altogether the grander vision for our lives in community, a vision driven by actual hope in Christ. I see this communal life lived out beautifully in our multipliers community in churches like Disciples in Medina, Ohio; Missio in Bismarck, North Dakota; Garden City in Prince George, British Columbia; and many others who have set their church’s main focus on being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing the things Jesus did.
What the Spirit was doing in Mary all those years ago was undeniably of the Spirit, and she would go on to be with Jesus in ways no other could ever claim to have been. She carried him in her womb! His presence, nature, mercy, community, and future glory were all glimpsed by her, and later by his disciples. And today, we experience all of them as the NAB family!
Are you being called by the Spirit to incubate a creative and unique expression of his likeness in your community? Like Barnabas and Saul in Acts 13, maybe you are being set apart even now for the work to which the Spirit is calling you. Maybe it’s time to take your next steps of multiplication by reaching out to your regional minister, or to me.